Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD BILL

PORT OF LONDON (SUPERANNUATION) BILL

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

PETITION

Protection of Children (Sexual Offences)

Mr. F. Harris: I desire, Mr. Speaker, to present a Petition on behalf of 13,501 signatories, supported by the Independent Schools Association, which embraces 600 independent schools, the Rev. Dr. Sangster, General Secretary of the Methodist Church, who has written in general support on behalf of the members of this Church, and also some 400 members of the Clapham Old Xaverians Association and the Wimbledon Common Youth Council.
The Petition is also signed, particularly, by Mrs. Welsh of London, S.W.16, who has done so much work in the Protection of Children Campaign.
The Prayer of the Petition reads:
Wherefore, in view of the alarming number of sexual offences against young children, your Petitioners urge upon the House the need for taking immediate action to establish an institution for the treatment of such offenders, with the assurance that such persons shall not be released until cured.
And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

To lie upon the Table.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF SUPPLY

Messrs. Short Bros. and Harland (Contracts)

Mr. McKibbin: asked the Minister of Supply, in view of the unemployment situation in Northern Ireland, if he will ensure that the sub-contracting facilities of Messrs. Short Bros. and Harland are made available in the fullest degree for the construction of the new British European Airways Corporation jet airliner.

The Minister of Supply (Mr. Aubrey Jones): I am ready to do everything I properly can to place work in Northern Ireland, but I have no powers of direction in the case of sub-contracts relating to the British European Airways jet. I am sure, however, that Messrs. Short Bros. and Harland will make every effort to secure sub-contracts for the construction of the new aircraft.

Mr. McKibbin: Whilst thanking my right hon. Friend for his reply and appreciating his difficulties in the matter, may I ask him if he will use his best endeavours to ensure that the experience of Messrs. Short Bros. and Harland in the special fields of experiment is taken fully into account when placing production orders?

Mr. Jones: Yes, Sir, I have that consideration very much in mind.

Royal Ordnance Factories

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Supply what steps have been taken by his Department for the benefit of workers of the Royal Ordnance factories at Radway Green and Swynnerton to organise the production of civil goods.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: The suitability of the equipment at Radway Green for civil work is very limited, but some orders have been obtained and I have every prospect of being able to maintain employment there. As I explained in reply to the hon. Member's Question on 15th July, the Swynnerton Factory is no longer needed for defence purposes and is being closed.

Mr. Swingler: Though good work has been done in finding alternative jobs for


many Swynnerton workers, is the Minister aware that many workers in Swynnerton, which we know is being closed down, and Radway Green remain redundant and unable to find jobs, which is causing tension, and will he pursue vigorously, as he promised to do, the placing of contracts by British Railways for Radway Green?

Mr. Jones: I am doing that. The difficulty as far as Swynnerton is concerned, and I am aware of the obstacle, is that the factory is not suitable for the production of civil goods, being, in fact, a filling factory and, therefore, composed of a collection of relatively small hutments.

Sir A. V. Harvey: As an alternative, would my right hon. Friend consider letting out part of the factory to private firms, if they were interested to take up such accommodation, in which to manufacture civil goods?

Mr. Jones: I am not sure to which factory my hon. Friend is referring—

Sir A. V. Harvey: Radway Green.

Mr. Jones: —but I should be happy to do that with regard to any factory where the circumstances are suitable.

Mr. Callaghan: asked the Minister of Supply what was the cost of installing the facilities for machining graphite blocks at the Royal Ordnance Factory, Cardiff; to what extent the machines are now idle; and what efforts have been made to ensure that the four groups now constructing nuclear power stations use these facilities.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: The answers to the first two parts of the Question are £32,000 and about 40 per cent., respectively. The expenditure was largely incurred in transferring and adapting machinery which the Department already possessed. The military demand for this work is a fluctuating one and it is desirable to even out the fluctuations with civil work. To this end, my Department is trying to secure orders from the industrial groups to which the hon. Member refers.

Mr. Callaghan: Can the Minister say why these groups have refused to use these facilities? Is it true that they themselves are duplicating facilities? Is the Minister aware that because of this

situation a very strong report was circulating in Cardiff at the weekend that the Royal Ordnance Factory there is to be closed down? Will he please reassure us about this and indicate once again that there is no intention of closing down this factory?

Mr. Jones: I do not think it is right to say that the industrial consortia have refused all offers in this respect. Negotiations are still in progress. For my part, I should welcome the placing of orders here, and I should certainly deprecate the duplication of facilities which are already in existence.

Mr. Callaghan: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the second part of my question?

Mr. Jones: As I understand it, the second part of the question referred not to the atomic part of the Royal Ordnance Factory but to the wider field. The facts as they now stand do not warrant the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Callaghan: It was not made by me.

Defence Contracts

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Supply what plans have been prepared by his Department for conversion of war factories to peace production in the event of an international agreement to disarm.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: It would be premature to try and prepare such plans until some agreement on disarmament is in sight and something definite is known about its probable scope.

Mr. Swingler: Is the Minister aware that it is late to prepare such plans when redundancy is already being created? Is not the lesson which we should have learned that it is necessary to prepare beforehand for a rundown of defence contracts and to have some plans ready to put into operation for the conversion of the production of these factories to civil goods? Should not the Minister now take this responsibility?

Mr. Jones: I hope the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the nature of the plans depends on the nature of the agreement, in what kind of weapons the reduction takes place and the scope of the reduction.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Will the Minister read the report of the debate in the House last Monday in which concern was expressed from many quarters about the effect of the changes already announced in defence policy? Are we to understand from the Minister that no plans are being made to meet this contingency?

Mr. Jones: I have read the report of last Monday's debate. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to appreciate that it is very difficult to prepare plans to meet a situation which at the moment is entirely hypothetical.

Mr. Swingler: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Aircraft Research and Development

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Supply if he is now in a position to make a statement about his future policy on aircraft research and development.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: No, Sir; but I shall do so as soon as possible.

Mr. Beswick: Can the Minister tell us what considerations are holding up this statement? The defence statement is out and, presumably, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made up his mind about the broad outlines of the financial possibilities. Does not the Minister understand that it is necessary to know whether we are to have sufficient fundamental research in this country to support an aircraft construction industry? How much longer are we to wait?

Mr. Jones: When I first referred to this inquiry before Christmas, I said that I should endeavour to make a statement before spring. I understand that spring starts at 3 a.m. on 21st March. I will, however, endeavour to make a statement as soon as possible.

Military Transport Aircraft

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Supply when he expects to make a decision with regard to the purchase of a military freight transport aircraft; and whether this proposed purchase represents the last of the requirements now contemplated for a military transport machine.

Mr. Aubrey Jones: A study is now being made by the Service Departments of new requirements for freighter aircraft of all types, and I am in close consultation with them.

Mr. Beswick: Everyone is asking that the aircraft industry should reshape itself, and that there should be mergers and a general new start in the industry. How can it reshape itself and how can a new start be made unless it knows what are the requirements of the biggest customer, namely, the British Government? When will there be a decision about this? Before the spring?

Mr. Jones: The hon. Gentleman tried to catch me out a moment ago on an earlier promise I made in the matter of time. I think, therefore, that I had better refrain from making a further promise in this respect. I appreciate that this is an urgent matter, and the examination is being undertaken with a sense of the urgency.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOSPITALS

Nurses (Overtime)

Mr. Brockway: asked the Minister of Health if he will authorise payments to nurses for overtime duties.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Derek Walker-Smith): This question has so far arisen only in respect of mental and mental deficiency nurses who are already paid for excess hours worked.

Mr. Brockway: While recognising that and that the conditions for nurses have considerably improved, although they are still much lower than those for industrial workers, may I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman at least to see that their devotion is not exploited by the refusal of payment when they do overtime?

Mr. Walker-Smith: No claim for payment of this sort has so far been made for the general nurses, and as far as I know none is contemplated.

Patients

Sir K. Joseph: asked the Minister of Health whether the number of patients treated per bed at the non-teaching hospitals increased or decreased between 1955 and 1956; and by how much.

Mr. Walker-Smith: There was an increase from 6·96 to 7·13 in terms of patients whose treatment was terminated. For patients other than those under treatment for mental illness and mental deficiency, the corresponding figures were 12·7 and 13·0.

Sir K. Joseph: Does not my right hon. and learned Friend agree that these increases reflect the greatest credit upon both the administrative and the medical staff involved?

Mr. Walker-Smith: Yes. I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that. It is certainly so.

Psychiatric In-Patient Units

Dr. D. Johnson: asked the Minister of Health the number of psychiatric inpatient units that have been initiated in general hospitals during the past five years; and what are these hospitals.

Mr. Walker-Smith: With permission, I will circulate the list of hospitals in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following are the hospitals:

Non-Teaching Hospitals

Newcastle General Hospital.
Scartho Road Infirmary, Grimsby.
North Middlesex Hospital, N.18.
Manor Park Hospital, Bristol.
Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport.
North Lonsdale Hospital, Barrow-in-Furness.
Queens Park Hospital, Blackburn.
Burnley and District Hospital.
Astley Hospital, near Manchester.
Whelley Hospital, Wigan.
Birch Hill Hospital, Rochdale.
Westhulme Hospital, Oldham.
St. Catherine's Hospital Annexe, Birkenhead.
Newsham General Hospital, Liverpool.
Sefton General Hospital, Liverpool.

Teaching Hospitals

St. Pancras Hospital.
Wembley Hospital.
St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington.
West London Hospital.
Maida Vale Hospital.
Sheffield Royal Infirmary.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Midland Nerve Hospital.

Organisation and Methods Service

Sir K. Joseph: asked the Minister of Health how many staff are engaged in the Hospital Organisation and Methods Service; what assignments are at present being undertaken by it; and whether he can yet announce how much he proposes to extend this service.

Mr. Walker-Smith: Nine. Eight comparative studies and twelve individual assignments are in hand. In addition, twenty assignments at individual hospitals have been accepted but not yet started. I am considering how, and in what form, this service can best be extended.

Sir K. Joseph: Without exaggerating the virtues of this technique, does not my right hon. and learned Friend feel that a staff of nine is grossly inadequate when put to use in such a vast organisation employing almost the third largest man-power force of the whole country; and when he comes to consider what he proposes to do, will he bear in mind that much benefit could be gained by circulating the results of each inquiry, as it is held, to comparable institutions so that all may benefit?

Mr. Walker-Smith: The last part of my hon. Friend's question is really more applicable, I think, to the comparative studies than to the individual assignments, because of the variety of circumstances to which the individual assignments relate.
Replying to my hon. Friend's main point, he will, I know, appreciate that the studies so far put in hand result from the experimental unit which was set up to see whether this Organisation and Methods system would be of value in the hospital service. The result, I think, is that it has been clearly shown to be of value, and I am actively considering the best way to make this a permanent feature integrated in the hospital service.

Administrative and Clerical Staff (Report)

Mr. Mellish: asked the Minister of Health if he will now state when he intends to implement the Noel Hall Report on Administrative and Clerical Workers (Hospital Service).

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Minister of Health whether he will now make a statement regarding the implementation of the Noel Hall Report.

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Health what advice he has received from the Whitley Council which has been considering Sir Noel Hall's Report; and what action he will take to implement the recommendations of the Report.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I cannot yet add to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. J. Iremonger) on 28th January.

Mr. Mellish: The Minister will know that this matter is still with the Whitley Council and, in view of his record in previous negotiations of the Whitley Council, the Minister will understand the great uneasiness that is felt by many people about this. May I ask for an assurance that if, in fact, recommendations are made to implement much of the Noel Hall Report, which includes the grading structure, and, therefore, means increased salaries for the staff involved, he will not veto that decision but will, in fact, pay them?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I do not think it is constitutional for me to bind myself in the exercise of a statutory duty the time for which has not yet arrived. However, I will certainly tell the hon. Gentleman and the House that I am very hopeful that on this occasion the subcommittee before whom this question now is will arrive at a viable solution which will give general satisfaction. That is certainly my hope.

Mr. Robinson: The Minister very recently announced a decision in advance of the time he was called upon to make it in the case of the radiographers' claim. Can he give some indication that there will be finality in this matter at an early date, because he knows as well as we all do that this is really urgent in the National Health Service?

Mr. Walker-Smith: With respect, I think that the two cases are clearly distinguishable. In this case, the circumstances have not, as yet, arisen on which I could take a definitive decision in the exercise of my statutory powers. In the case of the radiographers, that time had, in fact, come, and I simply wrote to both sides of the Whitley Council so that there should be no misunderstanding and neither side should feel that it had been embarrassed by not knowing what was in our mind at that stage.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Does the Minister fully recognise the very great difficulties there are in securing in the National Health Service proper appointments in the higher as well as other clerical grades, and that to a very large extent we are

now dependent on part-time employment? Is it not highly desirable that every possible encouragement, and an early decision, should be given?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I certainly recognise and have always proclaimed the desirability of having a proper and satisfactory career structure in this service. It is for that reason that Sir Noel Hall was asked to make his Report, and it is to get the right implementation of that Report that the sub-committee is now at work.

Elderly Patients

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Health, in view of the fact that the survey in 1954 revealed that about 10,000 of the elderly patients in mental hospitals could be discharged if accommodation was available in old people's homes or chronic sick hospitals, what action has since been taken to supply this need; and in how many cases the changeover was made effective.

Mr. Walker-Smith: The figure to which the hon. Member refers was an estimate based on a sample inquiry; and it was not suggested that any large number of patients could be discharged, but rather that future admissions should be redirected or discharged earlier. Various developments of local authority and hospital services have been in progress to facilitate this; for example, in England and Wales since 1954 the number of places in old people's homes has increased by some 10,000, and that of available hospital beds for the chronic sick by 1,750.

Mr. Dodds: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that expert evidence before the Royal Commission indicated that large numbers of old people were being certified and sent to mental hospitals solely because this country has not provided suitable alternative accommodation for them? If the right hon. Gentleman has any doubts, will he arrange for another survey to be taken so that we may know what the position is up to date?

Mr. Walker-Smith: The survey referred to in the hon. Gentleman's Question was the survey to which I have referred, and the inferences from which were described in the Chief Medical Officer's Report


for 1954. A substantial number of elderly mental patients are, in fact, discharged from mental hospitals, and there has been a considerable increase in the hospital beds available for the chronic sick, including beds in psychiatric long-stay annexes.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that it is urgently necessary that he should give some indication to the local authorities of what extra financial provision he is going to make to help them to provide the accommodation which we all agree is needed in our local authority areas? Is it not time that he made some statement, especially as the Local Government Bill is going through Committee?

Mr. Walker-Smith: Yes, but not before discussions with the local authority associations on this point.

Mrs. Braddock: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the fact is that these people need hospital accommodation? Is he further aware that they are certified because there is no proper aged persons' hospital accommodation? The matter is not settled by having homes for them to go into; it is settled by not certifying these people. Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman consider the recommendation of the Royal Commission, in lieu of legislation, that some parts of mental hospitals should be de-designated in order that they could be treated as ordinary hospitals for elderly people, so doing away with this awful stigma of certification?

Mr. Walker-Smith: As the hon. Lady knows, I am reviewing all possible action which is open to me, on an administrative basis, prior to the introduction of legislation.

Mr. J. Eden: Will my right hon. and learned Friend, in conjunction with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, encourage so far as he can the development of special housing accommodation for these elderly people, the majority of whom are not at all anxious to spend their days of retirement in homes or mental hospitals but wish to stay in their own quarters with some kind of home help, if possible?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I appreciate the point made by my hon. Friend. He will

recall that we had a full and, I think, interesting debate on these questions in November last.

Senior Registrars

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Health if he will make a statement on the decisions reached at the meeting of the Joint Consultants Committee held on 27th February to discuss the senior registrar problem.

Mr. Walker-Smith: After a further discussion with officials, the representatives of the Joint Committee expressed a desire to discuss the subject with me. I have intimated my readiness to meet them at an early date.

Mr. Robinson: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say for how long this matter, which was urgent two and a half years ago, is going to drag on? How is it that this Committee managed to complicate what is essentially quite a simple problem? Who are the stumbling blocks to a solution—his Department or the consultants?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I am anxious to get an appropriate solution of this problem, the urgency of which I have already recognised in this House, by general agreement if at all possible; but an appropriate solution I must have in any event, and I have no doubt that the Committee will take note of the interest of hon. Members on this subject.

Mr. Cronin: Is it not the case that this meeting on 27th February reached a deadlock because the Minister wanted to make the setting up of the sub-consultant grade a condition for relieving the distress of the registrars?

Mr. Walker-Smith: No, I do not think that that represents a full or faithful précis of the Committee's decision. I am looking forward to seeing the Committee myself and discussing the problem with it. I hope the hon. Gentleman does not dissent from what I apprehend is the general view of hon. Members, that there ought to be a solution to this problem, and pretty quickly, too.

Dr. Summerskill: Could the right hon. and learned Gentleman say how many registrars are wholly or partly unemployed while awaiting the decision of the Committee?

Mr. Walker-Smith: No, not without notice. Perhaps the hon. Lady will be good enough to put that Question down.

Rampton Institution

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Health why he requires the staff at Rampton Mental Hospital to sign a declaration under the Official Secrets Act that they will not divulge any information they may learn in the course of their duties.

Dr. D. Johnson: asked the Minister of Health if he will abolish the operation of the Official Secrets Act from Rampton State Institution.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I would refer to my Answer of 17th February to the hon. Member for Erith and Crayford (Mr. Dodds).

Mr. Dodds: Is the Minister aware that that does not answer the question? What the Minister answered then was that there were two hospitals out of the whole National Health Service. I want to ask him now why it is necessary, under the National Health Service, for the staff to sign the Official Secrets Act declaration. Is this not a reason why it is so difficult to get official information out of Rampton?

Mr. Walker-Smith: No, Sir. The Official Secrets Act is an Act of general operation. All civil servants on appointment sign this declaration simply to ensure that they are aware of its provisions. All staff of hospitals, including the war pensioner hospitals, who are, in fact, civil servants, sign the declaration.

Mr. Dodds: asked the Minister of Health how long Peter Whitehead was detained in Rampton Institution; why he was sent there; what were the reasons for his long detention; why he was released; and, in view of the unsatisfactory features of the case, what investigations have been held or are contemplated.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Richard Thompson): This patient was sent to Rampton Hospital because the Board of Control were satisfied that he was of dangerous or violent propensities. He was there for two periods amounting to 9½ years because he needed the special care and supervision provided at a State

institution. He was released because the Board considered that he could be safely discharged. No investigation has been held and none is contemplated.

Mr. Dodds: Will the Minister deny that, after being in Rampton twelve years, this man was discharged on the morning of the day his case had to be heard in the High Court in the afternoon? Is that not a strange coincidence? Is the hon. Gentleman not aware that, in another place last week, the Lord Bishop of Southwell, who visits Rampton frequently for religious duties, made it clear that the authorities had made a mistake—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think the hon. Gentleman is in order in referring to what was said in another place.

Mr. Dodds: I understood that one could not quote from a debate in the other place, but that one could paraphrase—as I have heard many times in the House.

Mr. Speaker: No; the hon. Member may not do that at Question Time.

Mr. Thompson: I was asked, I think, if that might be thought a coincidence. It may well have been, but I have nothing to add.

Mr. Dodds: In view of the unsatisfactory answer, I give notice that I shall raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Emergency Admissions, Holborn and St. Pancras

Mrs. L. Jeger: asked the Minister of Health what facilities exist in Holborn and St. Pancras for emergency hospital admissions; whether he is aware that, owing to the large number of teaching hospitals with a discriminatory admissions policy, local doctors frequently experience difficulty in securing emergency admissions; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. R. Thompson: All hospitals in Holborn and St. Pancras admit emergencies. The emergency bed service will assist any doctor in difficulty to find a bed, if not in this district at some other hospital in the London area. If the hon. Member has any particular case of difficulty in mind and will let me have details. I shall be glad to look into it.

Mrs. Jeger: I thank the Minister for that reply. I will certainly be sending


him some very difficult cases. Is he aware that one of the problems arises because teaching hospitals are exempted from the findings of the medical referee who works with the emergency bed service, and that patients who may be gravely ill are often refused admission if they do not happen to provide interesting clinical material? Will he look at that aspect of the problem?

Mr. Thompson: Yes. Teaching hospitals must necessarily discriminate to some extent in the type of patient they admit if they are to fulfil their teaching function. They must, of course, also play their part in the hospital service of the district, and we have to strike a balance. I am satisfied that, generally speaking, that is done.

Dr. Summerskill: Is the hon. Gentleman satisfied with the operation of the emergency bed service throughout the country?

Mr. Thompson: That is rather another question. Last winter, of course, the service was under exceptionally heavy pressure because of the influenza epidemic, but I think that it proved itself equal to the task.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF HEALTH

Ice Cream

Sir R. Grimston: asked the Minister of Health what action he recommends local authorities to take when samples of ice cream give repeatedly low grade results when tested with methylene blue.

Mr. R. Thompson: Such results are regarded as indicating defects of manufacture or handling which call for further investigation, and this would depend on the circumstances in the individual case.

Sir R. Grimston: Supposing that that further investigation shows equally bad results? What does the local authority do then?

Mr. Thompson: My hon. Friend wrote to my predecessor last August about the sampling of a particular manufacturer's ice cream which was showing poor results. Our latest figures show that in November and December, 1957, all samples taken in the Trowbridge area satisfied the methylene blue test.

Mr. T. Williams: Did they also satisfy the test that a certain minimum percentage of cream should be contained in the ice cream?

Mr. Thompson: No, Sir, for this test relates to bacterial cleanliness.

Domiciliary Psychiatry Service

Dr. D. Johnson: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that a similar service to that of the Worthing experiment in domiciliary psychiatry extended throughout the country would prevent no less than 50,000 admissions to mental hospitals yearly; that, calculating the overall cost of each admission at £560, even allowing for irreducible hospital establishment overheads and for the cost of the domiciliary service, the saving thereby effected could not be less than £10 million per year; and whether he will produce plans on a national basis to ensure that this large saving be made in the next financial year.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to him on 3rd February.

Dr. Johnson: In addition to what he has said, will my right hon. and learned Friend give an assurance that, in the development of a service of this kind, no administrative divisions will be allowed to stand in the way? Will he look at that point in particular?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I can certainly assure my hon. Friend that we are looking with great interest at the Worthing experiment and that we shall certainly seek to get full value out of any lessons which it has to teach.

Under-Doctored Areas

Sir K. Joseph: asked the Minister of Health the number of doctors practising in under-doctored areas; and the number of patients in these areas in 1952 and 1957.

Mr. Walker-Smith: There were 3,484 doctors practising in under-doctored areas in July, 1956, the latest date for which figures are available. The approximate number of patients in such areas decreased from 21½ million in 1952 to 9½ million in 1956.

Dr. Summerskill: How often are these under-doctored areas reviewed?

Mr. Walker-Smith: The under-doctored areas are the areas designated as such by the Medical Practices Committee. They are the areas to which additional doctors can be admitted without question. As far as I know, there is what could be described as a continuous process of review by the Medical Practices Committee.

Cancer (Deaths and Research)

Mr. D. Griffiths: asked the Minister of Health the total number of deaths through cancer from 1945 up to and including 1957.

Mr. Walker-Smith: The number of cancer deaths recorded in England and Wales from 1945 to 30th June, 1957, was 1,064,475.

Mr. Griffiths: Is it not possible to persuade the Treasury to give a little more money for cancer research, or have we to wait until the cancer position is as appalling as the tuberculosis position used to be?

Mr. Walker-Smith: There is a Question later on the Order Paper on this subject. I think the hon. Member will see that there is a gratifying increase in this amount.

Mr. Sydney Irving: asked the Minister of Health, as representing the Lord President of the Council, what is the current expenditure from public funds on cancer research; and between which bodies the Government grant is divided.

Mr. Walker-Smith: Expenditure by the Medical Research Council from public funds on cancer research during the year 1957–58 is estimated at approximately £390,000. Cancer research is also carried out in the National Health Service in the course of treatment of patients, but it is not possible to make a separate estimate for the expenditure involved.

Mr. Irving: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the figures he gave earlier this afternoon will shock the country, which is already very disturbed by the increase in cancer? Is he satisfied that no promising line of research has been neglected through lack of funds? Is he also aware that the country would not begrudge any sum of money in respect of the alleviation of the terrible sufferings of this disease?

Mr. Walker-Smith: The figures in the earlier Question to which the hon. Gentleman refers were figures of mortality, much of which is due to the increase of lung cancer in men, which is not a matter solely for research. So far as concerns this Question, which refers to research, the amount spent on research is a good deal higher this financial year than last, and compares very favourably with the year 1950–51, in which the comparative figure was only £.157,000.

Homeless Families

Mr. Skeffington: asked the Minister of Health whether he will consider the appointment of an inter-departmental committee of inquiry to consider the facilities offered by local authorities to homeless families under Part III of the National Assistance Act.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) on 11th February by my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal on behalf of the Prime Minister.

Mr. Skeffington: Arising from that reply, is not the Minister aware that a very serious position now exists, as a a number of local authorities are not, in fact, carrying out their duties under the Act at all, with the result that those authorities that do try to comply with the Act have a much heavier task than they otherwise would?
Is the Minister also aware that a number of local authorities provide for communal sleeping for wives and children to the exclusion of husband, with the result that an increasing number of families are being broken up by that process; and that, in some cases, the children are becoming a charge on public funds because the family is disunited? Surely he could be a little more forthcoming.

Mr. Walker-Smith: This matter is under consideration by the Ministers concerned, and what the hon. Gentleman says will certainly be borne in mind in that consideration.

Disabled Persons

Mr. Hastings: asked the Minister of Health what guidance he has given to local welfare authorities as to the course


they should recommend to disabled persons threatened with eviction under the Rent Act who apply to them for advice.

Mr. R. Thompson: My right hon. and learned Friend does not think that any general guidance to local welfare authorities on this subject is necessary or, indeed, appropriate, and he has not communicated with them.

Mr. Hastings: Will the Minister consult the Minister of Housing and Local Government to find out what was in his right hon. Friend's mind when, replying to a supplementary question, he advised disabled persons threatened with eviction to apply to the local welfare authority? Is he aware that local welfare authorities do not understand to what he was referring?

Mr. Thompson: Yes, Sir. I think my right hon. Friend had in mind that local authorities which had made a scheme under Section 29 of the National Assistance Act for the welfare of handicapped persons, on the lines suggested in the model scheme, have an obligation to give advice and guidance to handicapped persons on personal problems. I think that that is what he had in mind.

Mr. Hastings: But will he make this clear to local authorities?

Dr. Summerskill: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether an elderly person suffering from chronic arthritis would be regarded as a handicapped person in that case?

Mr. Thompson: I do not think any general guidance is necessary. Cases vary very widely, and I think they must be judged on an individual basis.

Corneal Grafting (Bequests)

Sir F. Medlicott: asked the Minister of Health if he is satisfied that an adequate number of eyes is being bequeathed for the purposes of corneal grafting under the Corneal Grafting Act, 1952; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Walker-Smith: According to my information, the supply appears to be adequate in most parts of the country. I understand, however, that there may be some shortage in the London area, and steps are being taken accordingly.

Sir F. Medlicott: Does not the Minister think that periodical announcements in the legal journals drawing the attention of testators to this matter might prove very helpful?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the suggestion. He will appreciate that, at the present time, most eyes used in corneal grafting are, because of the time factor, from patients dying in hospital.

Health Service Statistics

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Minister of Health what arrangements have been made for the regular publication of a short summary of health service statistics.

Mr. Walker-Smith: A summary of health service statistics is given in the Annual Reports of my Department. The question of further or alternative statistical statements is at present being considered.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Does not the Minister recognise that, valuable as they are, the annual reports are not as a rule published until at least a year has gone by; and that there is need for public education as to the real cost of the National Health Service, and that it should be examined more carefully?

Mr. Walker-Smith: What I am hoping is that we shall get a summary table of the National Health Service statistics included in the Monthly Digest of Statistics issued by the Central Statistical Office. I think that would meet the point the hon. Gentleman has in mind.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say whether he can keep up to date the figures which were produced by the Guillebaud Committee, which gave some very valuable bases for estimating the actual cost of the health services?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I noted what the hon. Gentleman had to say about that in last Tuesday's debate, and I hope, if I am successful in catching Mr. Speaker's eye in the debate on Wednesday, that I might say a word about that topic then.

Prescription Charges

Mrs. L. Jeger: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that in certain cases patients on grounds of


expense are collecting fewer than the total number of items on their prescription forms; and, in view of the danger to health that may arise where the complete script is not supplied, what steps he proposes to take.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I have no evidence that this is happening, and do not consider that any special steps are necessary.

Mrs. Jeger: If I send the right hon. and learned Gentleman evidence that this is happening, and happening frequently, will he look into it? Why is he not aware that there are chemists in the London area who find this happening about once a week, are being put in an impossible position, and are sending the prescription form to the executive council clearly marked, "N.S. not supplied"? Why does he not know about these things?

Mr. Walker-Smith: My experience is that normally Ministers and Government Departments are very quickly told by letter or otherwise when things are thought to have been going wrong. All I am saying is that we have not received any evidence, by letter or otherwise, to this effect; but if the hon. Lady has any evidence to put before me, I shall naturally consider it with the greatest care.

Dr. Summerskill: Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman made investigations among chemists? Has any person in his Department asked chemists in the London area, where my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. L. Jeger) lives, whether this is so or not?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I do not think it would be appropriate to carry out a sort of roving inquiry, unless we start with the firm base of some evidence supplied by somebody.

Mrs. L. Jeger: asked the Minister of Health whether he will authorise the use of a specially coloured prescription form for patients suffering from agreed chronic diseases, which would entitle them to obtain all the items prescribed on payment of a single shilling.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I do not think such a scheme would be practicable.

Mrs. Jeger: Why not?

Mr. Walker-Smith: Primarily, as the hon. Lady will appreciate, because the doctor would be put in an impossible position in deciding whether to prescribe on a coloured form, for it is not practicable to lay down a standard list of conditions.

Doctors (Patients)

Mr. Barter: asked the Minister of Health the average number of patients on doctors' lists in July, 1952, and July, 1957.

Mr. Walker-Smith: The number was 2,436 in July, 1952; I regret that the figure for July, 1957 is not yet available but in July, 1956, it was 2,272.

Mr. Barter: Can my right hon. and learned Friend say whether this reduction in the average list indicates a better distribution of doctors?

Mr. Walker-Smith: Yes, Sir. I think it clearly does so; in fact, the trend has been for a smaller number of patients per doctor's list every year since 1952.

Mr. Hastings: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman realise that some lists are very small and that this high average must mean that some lists are very much higher than the figure he gave? Is not 2,272 a sufficient number of patients for any doctor?

Mr. Walker-Smith: The hon. Gentleman, with all his expert knowledge of this subject, will appreciate that doctors' lists are inevitably a little inflated because of the delay in removing the names of patients who die, leave the district and so on. Although these are the statistical figures, I think he can take it that the real average is a bit below what the figures suggest.

Atomic Radiation (Nuclear Explosions)

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Health by what means he is kept regularly informed of the dangers to health arising from nuclear explosions; and what liaison he has established with the health authorities in other countries for this purpose.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I rely on the Medical Research Council to keep me informed of any such dangers within my sphere of responsibility. They are in


touch with expert opinion in other countries, and I have not found it necessary to establish any special liaison arrangements for this particular purpose.

Mr. Swingler: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the country is continuing to get a good deal of conflicting evidence from reputable and well-known scientists on this subject, and that some of this evidence is extremely alarming? Would he consider taking the initiative and making an approach himself to those responsible for health in other countries in order that they might make representations to try to put a stop to these unfortunate explosions?

Mr. Walker-Smith: There is no difficulty in contacting other countries in the ordinary way through their national health departments. In addition to that, as the hon. Gentleman will know, we are represented on the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, which is actively considering the whole subject and will report to the United Nations by 1st July next.

Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency (Report)

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Minister of Health how far his acceptance of the main principles of the Report of the Royal Commission on the Law relating to Mental Illness and Mental Deficiency includes the recommendation that community care in its widest sense shall be the function of local health authorities and that such duties shall be statutorily imposed upon them.

Mr. Walker-Smith: This is one of the principles that is fully accepted; but whether anything would be gained by extending the statuory duties of local authorities is a matter that will require consideration.

Mr. Robinson: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman say what funds it is proposed to make available to the local authorities to carry out this work? Does he realise that, in the absence of adequate financial provision—which will have to be considerable—there might even have to be a reduction in the community provision for the mentally sick on what is being done at the moment?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I have in mind, as have my right hon. Friends, that the

expansion of staff and accommodation which would be necessary to put all these recommendations into effect would call for additional finance. That is the matter which we would have to consider in the light both of the recommendations and of the general requirements of the economic situation.

Poliomyelitis (Vaccination)

Mr. Cronin: asked the Minister of Health if he will indicate the two approximate totals of the number of injections of imported Salk vaccine and vaccine produced in the United Kingdom, respectively, which he estimates will have been given when his present poliomyelitis vaccination has been completed.

Mr. Walker-Smith: The programme is a continuing one and no such estimate is, therefore, possible, but up to the present enough vaccine has been issued to local health authorities in England and Wales for 3,900,000 injections with British vaccine and 2,400,000 with Salk.

Mr. Cronin: Will the Minister indicate why he will not import substantially more Salk vaccine? Would he not be able greatly to increase the scope of, and enormously accelerate, his programme if he did so?

Mr. Walker-Smith: Salk vaccine is being imported in very considerable quantities at the present time. During the next few months, supplies of Salk vaccine from Canada and the United States will, in fact, greatly exceed the supply of British vaccine, though that will increase later.

Mr. Cronin: Is it not the fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman could import much more Salk vaccine than he is doing or intends to do in the next few months?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I am not quite sure what the hon. Gentleman means by "Is it possible to import it?". There is a good deal of Salk vaccine on the other side of the Atlantic, as he will know. What we want to do is to import sufficient, but only sufficient, to supplement our British supplies.

Mr. Cronin: What is the obstacle preventing this large amount of Salk vaccine crossing the Atlantic, apart from the Minister's obduracy about it?

Mr. Cronin: asked the Minister if he will give two approximate figures indicating as far as is at present known the percentage protection given to the population under forty of two and three injections of poliomyelitis vaccine, respectively.

Mr. Walker-Smith: I am advised that there is insufficient scientific evidence to justify the promulgation of percentages for which the hon. Member asks. Vaccination with two injections gives a good degree of protection. A third injection after an appropriate interval is likely to reinforce such protection, but it is not known precisely by how much, except that it falls short of guaranteed immunity.

Mr. Cronin: But is it not well known that a third injection gives a protection vastly superior to that given by just two injections? Is the Minister not, therefore, offering the country a second-best solution to the poliomyelitis problem?

Mr. Walker-Smith: No, I do not know I would agree with the hon. Gentleman in using the words "vastly increased" degree of protection. My advice is that it is best to seek to vaccinate as many as possible of the people within the prescribed priority classes with two injections before proceeding to offer a possible and unknown additional degree of protection by way of a third injection.

Mr. Janner: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that there is a sufficient supply available of poliomyelitis vaccine in North America which has been fully tested for importation so as to enable every person who should be vaccinated against poliomyelitis to be so treated by the supply available in Great Britain supplemented by such imported vaccine; and what steps he is taking to deal with the position accordingly.

Mr. Walker-Smith: Large quantities of Canadian and American vaccine, tested both in the country of origin and in this country, are already being imported for use in the vaccination programme in supplementation of British vaccine. I am keeping both the programme and the supply position under constant review in the light of expert advice.

Mr. Janner: Would it not be right to say that there is a sufficient supply available in North America to enable all the

requirements in this country to be met, and is it not, therefore, very serious that we are not importing as much as we should in order to supplement our own supplies, with the result that cases are remaining untreated in many instances when they should be treated?

Mr. Walker-Smith: No, Sir. The Salk vaccine, before being imported into this country, has to satisfy the full series of safety and potency tests applied to British vaccine, and, on present advice, I am not prepared to agree to Salk vaccine being used unless it has passed those full tests. It is wrong, therefore, to suppose that simply by increasing the orders for Salk one could immediately step up the programme of vaccination.

Mr. Janner: But have not Canada and the United States very carefully investigated the Salk vaccine, and are not all the medical authorities there concerned prepared to use that vaccine after its thorough investigation? Can the Minister say, in view of the serious position here, why he is not prepared to accept those tests?

Mr. Walker-Smith: This has all been gone into many times before. There is a difference in the virus strain used in these two vaccines, and it is broadly because of that that we put the Salk vaccine through the British tests in this country. So far as I know, that course has commended itself both to the House and to public opinion generally.

Mr. Janner: asked the Minister of Health whether he is now in a position to ensure that all persons who are exposed to the danger of contracting poliomyelitis in consequence of their work in hospitals or other places, together with their families, have been or will be in the near future treated by poliomyelitis vaccination if they so desire.

Mr. Walker-Smith: Vaccination has been available to hospital staff treating poliomyelitis cases in the infectious stage and to laboratory workers dealing with live poliomyelitis virus since September, 1956. It is now available to general medical practitioners and ambulance staff and to the families of all these groups.

Mr. Janner: Is the vaccination available to the people who, in addition to those that the right hon. Gentleman has


mentioned, are subjected to the possibility of contracting this disease? Does he recollect the case of the Leicester public health officer who died in consequence of the fact that he was not treated? Will he see to it that these people are properly protected when they are put on to jobs which make it possible or probable for them to contract the disease?

Mr. Walker-Smith: So far as concerns the general categories of person to whom the hon. Gentleman's Question refers, they are covered by my reply. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise an individual case, perhaps he would be good enough to write to me or to put down a Question.

Medical Decisions (Information)

Mr. Cronin: asked the Minister of Health if he will consider releasing to the medical Press reports of the technical reasons for the conclusions of his medical advisers, when he makes major medical decisions which are likely to be of a controversial nature.

Mr. Walker-Smith: Technical information is already made available so far as practicable, both in reports of committees and in memoranda on special subjects.

Mr. Cronin: Does the Minister realise that on frequent occasions he makes medical decisions on the advice of his medical advisers which are quite incomprehensible to the medical profession? Is it not the case that, under the present system, his medical advisers have the power to make up the Minister's mind but no responsibility to indicate the reasons?

Mr. Walker-Smith: I have no evidence that these things are incomprehensible to the general body of medical opinion. If the hon. Gentleman is now saying that they are incomprehensible to him, I will, of course, take that into account as evidence, so far as it goes.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY, FRANCE AND ITALY (AGREEMENT)

Sir J. Hutchison: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what contact has been established between this country and the newly formed tripartite

organisation composed of representatives of the Federal Republic of Germany, France and Italy for research, development and production of weapons and equipment.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Ian Harvey): The three Governments have informed Her Majesty's Government and their other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Allies of the nature of their agreement and of their intentions. As the House will realise, the information is confidential and I am not in a position to disclose it.

Sir J. Hutchison: Will my hon. Friend remember, in general terms, that discussion to avoid individual action, even on a tripartite basis, is, under the policy of interdependence, very desirable?

Mr. Harvey: Yes, Sir. I think my hon. Friend will recognise that these agreements are essentially within the framework of W.E.U.

Oral Answers to Questions — RENT ACT

Mr. Lipton: asked the Prime Minister what deputations he has received, or decided to receive, to discuss the effects of the Rent Act, 1957.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend is not prepared to give details of communications which he may have with his hon. Friends—if that is what the hon. Gentleman means.

Mr. Lipton: How does the right hon. Gentleman know what I mean until I have spoken about it? Are we to assume from that reply that the only deputation that the Prime Minister will receive on the subject is from some of his hon. Friends? If not, why is he ashamed to admit the fact?

Mr. Butler: No. My right hon. Friend is ashamed to admit nothing. He is not prepared to give details of his correspondence or his communications with his hon. Friends or the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. H. Morrison: While agreeing with the right hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister is not ashamed to


admit anything—[An HON. MEMBER: "Nothing."]—is not my hon. Friend's question reasonable? He has asked the Prime Minister what deputation has been received or he has decided to receive. He does not say anything about the Minister's hon. Friends. Why does the Home Secretary deliberately get near to an untruth about the Question and misrepresent it with a view to not giving the answer? Is not the House entitled to know what deputations the Prime Minister has received or may receive?

Mr. Butler: No. I have no further information to give the House on this matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED STATES AND UNITED KINGDOM

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Prime Minister, in view of the many misunderstandings that still continue as to how far there is co-ordination between United States and British foreign and defence policy, if he will again visit Washington.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
If there were any Anglo-American differences which needed a visit to Washington from my right hon. Friend, he would, of course, be ready to make one.

Mr. Hughes: Will the Lord Privy Seal not agree that the Prime Minister is now very popular in Washington? It is very essential, in view of the latest development on summit talks, that the President should be adequately informed of the very strong opinion in this country against the establishment of missile bases here and of the danger that this country is in as a result of this policy. Does he not think that it would be a good thing to convey this feeling personally to the President?

Sir G. Nicholson: Why does not the hon. Gentleman go?

Mr. Butler: There are, of course, frequent communications between Her Majesty's Government and the United States administration on this and all other grave matters. I realise the importance of this matter, but I do not think that by itself it would justify a visit to Washington.

THE RIGHT HON. MEMBER FOR WOODFORD

The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Lord Privy Seal (Mr. R. A. Butler): Mr. Speaker, I would, with permission, like to make a very short statement.
Last Thursday, in accordance with the wishes of hon. Members in all parts of the House, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition sent a telegram in the following terms to my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill):
At the end of Questions today the whole House asked that a message of congratulations should be sent to you on your recovery, conveying the warm good wishes of us all
The House will wish to know that it has received, in reply, the following message from my right hon. Friend:
I am deeply honoured that the House of Commons should send me a message as you have done. I hope soon to be once more in my seat. Meanwhile, please accept my grateful thanks.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

BILL PRESENTED

AGRICULTURE

Bill to amend the Agriculture Act, 1947, the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1948, the Agriculture (Scotland) Act, 1948, and the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1949; to require the landlord of an agricultural holding in certain cases to provide, repair or alter fixed equipment on the holding; to amend Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1954, as to tenancies of agricultural land excluded therefrom; to amend the Schedule to the Corn Production Acts (Repeal) Act, 1921, and section twenty-one of the Hill Farming Act, 1946; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid; presented by Mr. John Hare; supported by Mr. R. A. Butler, Mr. Maclay, the Attorney-General, Lord John Hope, and Mr. Godber; read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Thursday and to be printed. [Bill 79.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

Ordered,
That the Proceedings on any Private Business set down for consideration at Seven o'clock this evening by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means be exempted from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House) and that notwithstanding anything in Standing Order No. 7 (Time for taking Private Business), any such Private Business may be taken after Nine o'clock.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY [24th February]

[5TH ALLOTTED DAY]

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, TOGETHER WITH ESTIMATE FOR THE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE, 1958–59

(VOTE ON ACCOUNT)

Resolution reported,
That a sum, not exceeding £1,193,015,000, be granted to Her Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for the following Civil and Revenue Departments and for the Ministry of Defence for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1959.

Resolution agreed to.

[For details of Resolution, see OFFICIAL REPORT, 24th February, 1958: cols. 37–40.]

RENT ACT, 1957

3.32 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I beg to move:
That this House deplores the threats of eviction, the oppressive agreements and the serious hardships imposed upon tenants as a result of the Rent Act, 1957, and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to take immediate steps to remedy these grievances.
In November, 1953, in "Houses—The Next Step", the Government said that it would not yet be right to free even the houses in the higher rateable values. During the General Election campaign in May, 1955, the Tory Central Office told its speakers to deny any intention to raise rents generally.
In November, 1956—not very long afterwards, but, meanwhile, the Government had started to improve the housing situation by cutting the housing subsidies—the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), then the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, told an astonished House, in his own inimitable language, that we should, in twelve months or so, be level with an equation of the average supply and demand for homes.
This remarkable proposition, which, the hon. Gentleman ventured to suggest, would meet with general acceptance, met


with general denial. When harried about it, the hon. Member replied that it was only an average. Many hon. Members will know the story of the man who came to a ford, inquired of a bystander how deep it was, was told that the average was 2 ft., started to wade the ford, and was drowned "in the average". What we have to deal with today are a good many people who are being drowned in the hon. Member's "average".
The "year or so" to which the hon. Member referred has since elapsed, and the present position is, as every hon. Member knows perfectly well, that there is a desperate shortage of houses and living accommodation in London and in all the large towns. That is what we have to face. The Minister of Housing and Local Government told us on 28th November, 1957, that in the large towns up and down the country there were more than 1 million people who had to be moved out in relief of overcrowding. The shortage has, of course, been aggravated by the removal of the housing subsidies and the high rates of interest which have cramped council building. A day or two ago, the Tory Government succeeded for the first time in their objective of getting the number of council houses built in a month below the number built by private enterprise.
In addition to that, no new towns have been designated by the Government, and the overspill arrangements are moving very slowly. In those circumstances, it is not surprising that the London County Council is still unable to deal with the cases on its list, urgent cases, more than 50,000 of them, at a rate of more than 2,000 or 3,000 a year.
That is the background against which the Government brought in the Rent Act and gave liberty to landlords to evict tenants from houses with a rateable value of more than £40 in London or £30 in the provinces, and, further, took power by order to decontrol even more houses, having the aim—as the present Minister of Defence told the Tory Conference at Llandudno in the summer of 1956—of full decontrol.
What is the position of the tenants who are now faced with the consequences of this Act? Literally, in those circumstances, they have nowhere else to go but the street into which they may be

turned out if the landlord so chooses. If they are to avoid eviction, if they are to avoid having nowhere to live, they must accept any bargain, however oppressive, that the landlord may offer them, for they have no alternative.
It is, therefore, not surprising that we get case after case, by letter, by interview or in the Press, of tenants who here and now are being driven frantic with anxiety. One of the Sunday newspapers yesterday called it neurosis—"Rent Act neurosis" or "Eviction neurosis"; I have forgotten which it was. I had called to my attention this morning—for obvious reasons I shall not give the details—four cases coming to a single medical practitioner of people who had fallen seriously ill simply as the result of worrying about this matter.
We have had a fairly full admission of, at any rate, some of the trouble from the Minister of Housing and Local Government himself in a speech on 22nd February which attracted notice everywhere. I shall quote from that speech; but I say at once that I regard it as an understatement of what has been happening. I will take one or two points from the speech. The Minister, first, gave not his Ministerial but his political blessing to the landlords as a mass. This is not one of the right hon. Gentleman's Ministerial speeches; it is, I have discovered, one of his political ones, and one has to get a copy from the Conservative and Unionist Central Office.
Having said that, he went on:
But, as always, there are exceptions.
There are more than exceptions, I am afraid. He said:
I am thinking particularly of those landlords who, instead of reletting, are planning to sell simply for the sake of selling.
I accept the right hon. Gentleman's words and I call them to the attention of hon. Members opposite, who, somewhat desperate at the consequences of what they have done, seek to put the responsibility for this anxiety on any shoulders other than those which should properly bear it. Those, as I see it, are the shoulders not so much of the landlords as of the Government, who have enabled the landlords to cause the trouble which is now occurring.
I quote the right hon. Gentleman again:
…to sell simply for the sake of selling… giving their tenants no option but to buy or get out.
That has happened, and there is such an overwhelming case to put to the Government today that I should be the last to try to exaggerate it by taking a few examples of thoroughly bad landlords. We know that there are such people. We know quite well that unnecessary hardship is being caused by people who are behaving ruthlessly and greedily. We know that at the other end of the scale—and I have never denied this—there are good landlords who, from motives of charity or policy, will not exercise their full rights.
But in the middle there is a vast mass of landlords, corporate and individual, who hold these houses as an investment, for the money they can get out of them, and who have now been enabled to threaten tenants, sometimes of considerable age, even more frequently of longstanding in their tenancies, with leaving the homes they have been accustomed to and having nowhere else whatever to go.
I take one example. I take Bell London and Provincial Properties Limited. On 7th February, 1958, the local paper which covers the area of Chiswick Village, where this company has flats, came out with the news, which I believe to be well founded, that the tenants of all the decontrolled flats in Chiswick Village had been served with notices to quit and that they had been told that there was no room for bargaining: no new lease would be offered to them.
On 22nd Febraury, the right hon. Gentleman made his speech. On 24th February, in the Daily Telegraph, there appeared a report of a statement by one of the directors of this company saying that this could not concern their company, and, indeed, it was the case that then, or shortly before or after that date, new leases had been offered to the tenants. The tenants attributed it to the publicity which had been given to the original refusal to negotiate at all.
That is not the end of the story. The question was: at what rent? The rents in these houses were comparatively low, £2 to £4 or thereabouts. People going

round Richmond and Chiswick found, not surprisingly in the state of affairs I have indicated, that they would have to pay three or four times that rent. They were people of all types and conditions. Many of them could not and cannot afford it.
Nor is that the end of the story. The right hon. Gentleman must know this company well. It has four blocks of flats in Hampstead. It has another block in Park West, near the Marble Arch. The information I have about Park West is that all the tenants who can be turned out there are to be turned out without the opportunity of a new lease so that flats may be furnished and let furnished at the high rates which prevail in that part of London for furnished flats.
This is something of which we warned the right hon. Gentleman when the Rent Bill was going through. We told him this was not merely a case of having one tenant of unfurnished premises in place of another, that it was also a question of landlords taking these homes and offering them either for the purpose of sale, which I have mentioned already, or for the purpose of letting very profitably, furnished.
That is one part of the trouble. Now we will come to what I call the oppressive agreements; and I mean it. I am not saying, that this is the case where every landlord is concerned, or even of the majority of landlords. I am simply saying that it is the case of a substantial number of people, and that the House ought to intervene to protect those people.
My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) has a Question on the Order Paper for tomorrow referring to rent increases of five times to eight times. I heard of one increase of six times. The right hon. Gentleman tells us in this speech that the right figure is two to three times, not the previous rent, but the gross rateable value. I simply say that in these cases most of these people have been for some time in these houses, and I ask, if we oblige them, at comparatively short notice—I know it will not happen till October; I know that leases can be negotiated meanwhile—at comparatively short notice, to pay many times what they have been accustomed to pay in rent before, where are they to get the money to do it?
I want hon. Members to consider what happens. People nowadays, given the housing shortage, have had great difficulty in finding accommodation. They have often stayed on in places where the rent was already more than they could afford, and with the rising cost of living they are now asked to pay highly increased rents. I am talking for the moment of the somewhat better-off tenants of the decontrolled premises. They will not be able to do it. They will not be able to get out of other commitments. Let us face the face quite bluntly and simply: they will take it in getting less to eat.
I have said this before, and I say it again, and it is right that it should be said. I have cited before and I cite again a case in Stockton-on-Tees, in the 'thirties, where just that happened as the result of a sharp rise in rent on removal from a slum area to a good council house. What we are doing now is not moving them out from a bad house into a better. We are leaving them in the same house, and we are presenting the landlords with an additional rent for nothing more done. That goes both for the decontrolled houses and for the others to which I shall refer in a minute.
There are some other types of oppressive agreements. The Government Amendment, which, I understand, is to be moved to the Motion, says that we shall secure
better maintenance of the nation's stock of houses.
Let me tell the House what steps are being taken to that end in the new agreements that are being offered to tenants. Previously, in most of these cases the responsibility was the landlord's. Often he did not carry it out. Now, in all the new leases that I have seen the landlord seeks to put the full responsibility upon the tenant. I dare say that there are exceptions, but that seems to be the general practice.
Whether that will or will not secure the better maintenance of the nation's stock of houses depends quite simply on whether the tenant can afford to do the repairs. We can take it from long practice that even where the responsibility is the landlord's the tenant, in the past, has usually done his best to keep his own home in order.
This is a rather unsatisfactory state of affairs. On the Third Reading of the Rent Bill, we had the Minister saying about a Measure which affects millions of ordinary people who are unskilled in these technical things, that those affected should enter into no agreement, make no bargain with the landlords, take no action under this iniquitous Act except upon professional advice. Professional advice may be useful, but it cannot curb the greed of some landlords and the natural money-making instincts of many more. That is the root of this trouble.
We discovered the other day, in another debate, that over a quarter of a million tenants of controlled houses were being helped to pay these rent increases out of public funds by the National Assistance Board. I leave them out for the moment. Every hon. Member knows that there are many people affected by rent increases who are not receiving National Assistance. They are just on the right or the wrong side of getting it. Those people will find it even harder. They will get no help. They are paying only a 7s. 6d. increase at the most now, but when the additional increase comes along how will they pay it?
The Minister of Housing and Local Government said the other day that the question of repairs was going along nicely. Is it? I do not think so. Let hon. Members consider the formalities through which any tenant has to go in connection with arrangements to secure repairs. And these arrangements are well and truly weighted on the side of the landlord. Some houses are being patched up. Others are not being mended at all. Meanwhile, despite these "notable contributions" to the housing conditions in the country, there is nothing in the Act to oblige the landlord to get a house in proper order before he increases the rent. These are complicated provisions. They are working badly and there are too many tenants at present still living in houses which are in need of repair.
The Minister of Housing and Local Government said that these classes of landlords are in a minority, and that they have no right to leave their tenants in uncertainty and anxiety by not offering them a new lease. The right hon. Gentleman said:
Landlords intending to offer new tenancy agreements have no justification for using eviction notices as a prelude to negotiations.


The right hon. Gentleman had better say that to Bell London and Provincial Properties Ltd. He himself says that he knows of many tenants who will be quite needlessly upset by eviction orders when it turns out that the landlord was quite prepared to negotiate a new tenancy.
Many hon. Members will be wanting to give examples of these heart-rending cases. The right hon. Gentleman recognises these grievances. They exist in a substantial number of cases. He differs from me in thinking that they concern only a small minority. They concern quite considerably the average landlord.
At the end, having called attention to the consequences of his own legislation, the right hon. Gentleman said of the landlord:
It is in his interest as well as in the tenant's to reach agreement.
And now we come to the menacing words:
There is still plenty of time for my words to have effect … Those who do not heed them may regret it. I shall be watching closely to see how things go on.
Let hon. Members think of the landlords of England being watched closely by the right hon. Gentleman to see how things go on! He looks at me occasionally and I do not find it intimidating. It would not really make me change what I proposed to do.
What action will the Government, and the right hon. Gentleman in particular, take to remedy these grievances affecting, on his own showing, very many people indeed? Putting it as low as one likes, that is true on the right hon. Gentleman's own speech and on his own admissions. We on this side of the House do not suggest any more steps to him. We have been going on doing it. During the progress of the Rent Act through the House we made many suggestions.
The Government's Amendment today talks about under-occupation. We suggested that exchanges should not be purely dependent on the landlord's consent as well as the tenant's wishes. We were voted down. Since then, many of my hon. Friends have sought to introduce Bills under the Ten Minutes Rules, repeating suggestions made by us in the course of the debates on the Rent Act, and sometimes improving on those suggestions.
One such Bill would have postponed the date of operation of the Rent Act. Another suggested that there should be power for tenants to stay, subject to the rent tribunal fixing a reasonable rent, but the party opposite prefers an unreasonable rent when the landlord gets it. Again, we asked that the courts should be given powers to restrain or delay evictions in cases of aged tenants, long occupation or grave hardship.
Could there have been a more moderate claim than that, put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, East (Mr. Orbach)? Then, most recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Aston (Mr. J. Silverman) asked that power be given to local authorities to take over these houses, not by the clumsy, slow and inappropriate means of compulsory purchase orders, which take time to go through and require the Minister's consent, but on their own, and in proper cases, by means of the procedure for speedy acquisition.
Every single one of these steps has been voted down by right hon. and hon. Members opposite, with their blind and obstinate views. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite must carry in their own consciences the burden of what they have done by means of the Rent Act. They must carry the burden of refusing to recognise the hardship which they have created and refusing to take the action open to them to correct it.
There is one piece of property which is not rent-controlled and that is the Treasury Bench. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have had notice to quit from their landlords, the British people. Instead of forcing evictions on tenants, instead of driving the aged and sick out into the streets, with nowhere else to go, let them quit. They need not wait until October. The time is now.

4.0 p.m.

Mrs. Lena Jeger (Holborn and St. Pancras, South): I rise briefly to support the Motion so ably moved by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison).
May I start, Mr. Speaker, by saying a personal word to the Minister? I wish to express my regret at the occurrences at the meeting which the right hon. Gentleman attempted to address recently in my constituency. I do so


because I feel that the arguments against this vicious piece of legislation do not need balloons and bicycle chains to underline them; it is unnecessary and undesirable for organised hooliganism and personal exhibitionism to be used to break up meetings of that kind.
Moreover, I am very sorry that my constituents could not hear the Minister's speech, because the more he speaks on this Act the greater assistance he is to the Opposition. I am even more sorry that the right hon. Gentleman was not able to hear what my constituents wanted to say to him, because many people who do not normally attend public meetings went to the Holborn Hall last Monday night, weighed down with desperate, personal anxieties. They wanted very much to let the Minister know what their landlords were doing to them. There was not one of them who had a story of a good landlord to tell the Minister. Because many cases have been brought to me, I will briefly put one or two of them to the right hon. Gentleman, on which clarification is needed.
I find that the words of warning which the Minister spoke to landlords the other day have had a very unhelpful effect. The only effect they have had in the cases with which I have had to deal is that landlords have tried to hurry on the signing agreements, which they must feel in their consciences are wrong, in case the Minister takes some action against them.
Of the specific difficulties which I wish to raise briefly today, one is the question of the backdating of leases. The case I describe is not an isolated one and I use it because it points the difficulty. This constituent is paying a rent of £135 inclusive. He lives in the dreary hinterland of the railway termini which make up part of my constituency. This is the territory that Bernard Shaw explored when he was on the St. Pancras Borough Council, and was looking for material for "Widowers' Houses". Those houses are still there.
This tenant has now been asked to pay £200 inclusive, although the gross rateable value is £65. Hon. Gentlemen opposite who have recommended that two-and-a-half times the gross value is a fair figure will notice that this is well above that suggestion. This constituent is

nearly 70 years of age, so is his wife. They are people of small means and their biggest fear is of being homeless. So, in their desperation, they take this bitterly difficult decision: they do as the Minister tells them and seek professional advice. They go to a solicitor and tell him that they will have to starve to pay this increased rent, but that they will pay it to keep a roof over their heads in their old age.
A letter comes back from the solicitor—I have it here—dated 12th February. He has just received the draft lease offering the rental of £200 per annum exclusive—payable as from 6th July, 1957. This means that my constituent has been informed that he already owes the landlord over £120.

Mr. G. Lindgren: The Tories are the pals of the landlords.

Mrs. Jeger: Yet my constituent has a perfectly clear rent book. There are no arrears marked on it, but his solicitor tells him that under the Act this procedure is apparently not illegal. I ask the Minister to try to clarify the position today, because there are other cases of leases being backdated and of the consequent arrears being demanded as a capital sum. I put it to the Minister that such demands for arrears can only be interpreted as disguised premiums, and should be regarded as illegal under Section 13 of the Act. Surely it is impossible for a man with a clear rent book to be told that he owes over £120 in rent, plus his share of the rates, for a period which has already elapsed.
Because the Minister has suggested that not all landlords are bad, he should know what kind of landlords we are dealing with. The landlords in this case are notoriously bad; in fact, they are so disreputable that the local authority exerts its rights under paragraph 5 (d) of the First Schedule of the Act not to accept any undertakings from them in respect of proposals to deal with items under certificates of disrepair.

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: Would the hon. Lady give way for a moment? If she is dealing with landlords who she asserts are bad landlords—I am not criticising this—and is not afraid of facts, should not publicity be given to them? Why not name them?

Mrs. Jeger: I thank the hon. Gentleman. I was intending to name them at the end of the indictment. I thought that the House might be interested to know that these landlords, who own about 50 houses in St. Pancras, have had, in the last six years, 296 intimation notices against them and 44 summonses, including one for refusal to obey a magistrate's order. They are properly and appropriately named Winner Investments Limited.
To show that this is not an isolated example, I will give the House another. I have been approached by an elderly widow whose rent of £150 inclusive is to be increased to £400 exclusive. She lives in a miserable block, which has 84 stairs to her flat, with no amenities and no services. She was prepared to do as she is advised by the Minister, so she tried to negotiate with her landlord. The Minister will be interested to know that she has succeeded in getting the rent reduced from £400 to £375—on condition that she pays this as from 6th July, 1957.
I submit to the House that this must be regarded as a concealed premium and that the Minister must make it clear today that this is the only way in which the law can be interpreted. If the right hon. Gentleman has nothing else to say to the House today, I ask him at least to say that such back-dating and demands for arrears of rent in a lump sum is illegal, because there is confusion among the legal profession about this point.
We all know of other kinds of disguised premiums which are afflicting people sorely in Central London. The provision made by the Minister in the Act as regards illegality of payments over and above the fair valuation for furniture and fittings is an absolute farce. Every newspaper, every hoarding outside the little shops which show advertisements, is covered by examples of obviously inflated prices being charged for furniture and fittings.
We know that the answer is that these cases should be reported and that certain steps should be taken, but I wonder whether the Minister has ever stopped to think what it is like for people who are house hunting, perhaps with two or three children, trailing around in bad weather, desperate to find a place to live. They cannot be deflected from their purpose by going to the town hall or the police and becoming involved in such

cases. All they know is that they have not the £200 to pay for a pair of old curtains and that they will, therefore, not get the flat. It must rest upon the Minister to take some initiative. I am sure that even a few cases, which could be used as examples, against this kind of unreasonable and illegal behaviour would have a salutary effect.
One dodge, which is probably legal but which I think should be discouraged, is that by which many people are being induced to exchange tenancies when their present tenancy is controlled. They make the exchange only to find that through the exchange the tenancy has become decontrolled, because the exchange ranks as a new tenancy. These people are trying to do what the Minister wants them to do— move from perhaps large, under-occupied premises—and they find that by so doing, and by trying to behave in a good social way, they have put themselves outside any protection, even though they move into premises in London where the rateable value is less than £40.
I believe that the Minister must realise that, particularly in London, the Act is already proving an absolute disaster. That is particularly so in Central London, where we are not dealing with the imaginary Tory landlord, the poor little widow with an income of £1 a week, whose property is occupied by a tenant earning £20 a week and paying 5s. a week rent. We do not have such people. We are here dealing mainly with big companies and big trusts. One of them is paying 32 per cent. in dividends and has just notified a very large increase in the rents of one large block of flats in my constituency.
Moreover, the difficulties of building in Central London, which the Minister has done very little to help us overcome, are exacerbating the situation. In St. Pancras, for instance, when we carry out a slum clearance scheme and put up the tallest blocks of flats which are allowed, we often find that we have less accommodation than was provided by the mean little streets which we pulled down, be-because these were so densely occupied, with a family in every room. Under the density ruling we have a net loss all the time. Consequently, that part of the Amendment which deals with increasing accommodation is irrelevant.
I hope that the Minister will not say that these people should not expect to live in Central London, because there are many people who must live in Central London by virtue of their jobs. These include the people who drive the last trains into the railway stations, the Covent Garden porters, the newspaper printers in Fleet Street, the waiters who work in the restaurants of Soho and the West End, and the theatrical profession. All these people make a contribution towards the life of the capital, towards the life of the community, and it is impossible for the Minister to argue that they have no right to live in Central London.
Although I have perhaps been somewhat parochial in my approach, I assure the Minister that what I have said applies not only throughout London but in varying degree all over the country. I ask him today to make it absolutely clear that he was not just playing with words when he recently promised that he was prepared to take some action. He must take some action now, because every day that passes more and more people are being forced by the fear of homelessness into signing these agreements which are so unfair and which he himself has said should be discouraged.

4.15 p.m.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Mr. Henry Brooke): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
congratulates Her Majesty's Government upon the rapid expansion of house building achieved in the past six years which has rendered a measure of decontrol possible; reaffirms its belief that the Rent Act, 1957, will make a valuable contribution to the nation's housing needs by securing better maintenance of the nation's stock of houses and by bringing into use accommodation which because of rent restriction has remained under-occupied; and maintains its support for Her Majesty's Government in all measures necessary to achieve these ends in a fair and reasonable manner".
It lies ill in the mouth of the Labour Party to criticise the Government on housing policy. Ever since the war the country has suffered from the failure of the Labour Governments from 1945 to 1951 to build enough houses.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: What is the right hon. Gentleman going to do?

Mr. Brooke: That failure of theirs has contributed to more hardship than the

Rent Act will ever do. In those years they were asleep to the housing need. The moment that the Labour Party was swept from office, in 1951, as the Amendment says, a "rapid expansion of house building" took place. For five years in succession we have hit a target which is 50 per cent. higher than the Socialist Government thought and said was good enough for the people of this country.
Rent control is not a housing policy. It is a frustration of wise housing policy. When rents are anchored to a figure which is long outdated, tenants also become anchored to houses which may be too big for them but where they can live cheaply. Young families who wanted to rent unfurnished could not get accommodation anywhere because no ordinary landlord who could get vacant possession would let again unfurnished at a hopelessly uneconomic rent. Far from the Rent Act having come too soon, it can very well be argued that it came too late, but that was because those six years were wasted when the Labour Government would not let the builders build.
For eighteen years, and in some cases more, tenancies had become petrified; the longer they were frozen in, no one realises better than I how painful it may be to move in the end. It is this much-too-long freeze of tenancies which causes difficulties now, and what the Amendment says is that we must thaw it out and do so in a fair and reasonable manner. No one has ever claimed or imagined that rent restriction at 1939 rents can be altered without any hardship or inconvenience to anybody. What we have to do is to keep down the hardship and to go forward with the policy.
The cardinal fact is that never before has there been as much house room in the country at large as there is now. Within a short time, 3 million new houses and flats will have been built in Britain since the war—two-thirds of them under a Conservative Government. We have reached a point where between 9 and 10 million people, one-fifth of the whole nation—equal, if one puts it this way, to the whole population of Australia—have been able to get into good, modern homes—and this is chiefly due to this Government.
The building of new houses, however, is only one way of helping people to


live better. We are also, as a Government, carrying on a major slum clearance drive. Over and above all that, it is absolutely essential, also, to encourage the repair and improvement of the older houses, and to urge on the conversion of large, old houses into flats and maisonnettes, and to stop subsidising under-occupation. Everybody who thinks honestly must agree with all that; and these are the purpose of the Rent Act.
There are about 15 million dwellings in this country. The Rent Act affects the tenants of about 5 million of them. Six out of every seven of those tenancies affected by the Rent Act remain controlled, and six out of every seven tenants still enjoy security of tenure. Critics of the Act seldom mention that fact, and the Motion that we are asked to discuss certainly conceals it. For the 4¼ million tenancies that remain under control, the Act has worked, and is working, very smoothly.
The Opposition alleged that the whole system of certificates of disrepair would break down. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) said this afternoon that the arrangements are working badly. Well, I have had inquiries made, and I think that the House will be interested in these figures.
The Act has been so successful in stimulating the putting in hand of repairs that up to the end of last year, 31st December—and that is in the first six months of the operation of the Act—local authorities had issued only 13,000 certificates of disrepair because the landlord would not do the work. There were, at that time, another 10,000 applications under consideration. Even if all those were granted—which, judging by the earlier applications, they would not be—it would make a total of 23,000 certificates of disrepair out of more than 4¼ million tenancies—

Mr. John Diamond: Mr. John Diamond (Gloucester)rose—

Mr. Brooke: —just about half of 1 per cent.

Mr. Diamond: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way. I wanted to ask him whether those figures include cases, some of which I have knowledge myself, where the tenant, in

spite of being so advised by his own Member of Parliament, has refused to put in the application because he is terrified of being thrown out?

Mr. Brooke: I really cannot help tenants who are so foolish as all that—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] We can lay down the law here as best we can, but if the tenants do not seek the protection it provides, and are not even guided by so admirable an adviser as the hon. Gentleman, then what can we do?

Mr. Leslie Hale: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that in cases where certificate K has been issued, many very bad landlords file an acceptance of the obligation to repair which they have no intention whatever of carrying out? Is he also aware that yesterday I visited a house in Oldham—51, Brunlees Street—where a man and woman, obviously suffering from pneumonic and rheumatic trouble because of the terrible state of the house, had got a certificate that all the floors were defective, most of the walls were defective, part of the roof was defective; that there are coals under the stairs, no hot water, no lavatory of any kind; and that the old rent was 8s. 6d. and the new rent 14s.?

Mr. Brooke: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman did about that, but I trust that, with his legal knowledge, he advised his constituent that if, in fact, the landlord did not fulfil his promise to carry out repairs, the tenant would, under the Rent Act, be able to recover any extra rent he had paid.

Miss Alice Bacon: Would the Minister say how he reconciles his figures with the fact that the Labour Party has distributed 300,000 forms—[Interruption.] These have been actual requests for forms by people whose houses are in disrepair. Is he aware that those 300,000 forms for certificates of disrepair have been distributed?

Mr. Brooke: I think that that must be because a great many tenants decided not to take the Labour Party's advice.
Apart from the 23,000 cases I have mentioned, in all the other cases where a rent increase has been claimed the landlord has done the necessary repairs, or is doing them, or has undertaken to


do them. That, Mr. Speaker, is thanks entirely to the Rent Act.
The Opposition's Motion ignores the whole of that, and concentrates on the decontrolled tenancies. As I have said, these decontrolled tenancies concern only about one in seven of the homes affected by the Act. That is about 6 per cent. of all the dwellings in the whole country. Even the terms of the Motion imply the opposite of the truth. The great majority of decontrolled tenants have not been threatened with eviction. The great majority of decontrolled tenants have not been asked to pay an unreasonable rent for new tenancies. All the exaggeration by Socialists and Communists helps no one at all except that small minority of landlords who might like to frighten tenants into paying too much.
Excellent, balanced articles have been coming out recently in some newspapers, disposing of the scare stories but pointing out where the real difficulties lie. For instance hon. Members may have read a very sensible series in the Daily Mail recently. I want to give the House an example of the scare story. The President of the Enfield Labour Party told the Middlesex County Council that 800 families in Enfield would be evicted because of the Rent Act. He arrived at this figure because, from inquiries made of the Enfield Labour Party, it appeared that 200 families would be evicted. He then multiplied that figure by four—no doubt because he could not believe that more than one person in four would come to the Labour Party for advice.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, someone else adopted a more reliable way of finding the facts, and took the trouble to ask the leading estate agents who manage property in Enfield. The truth then came out: that out of over 300 decontrolled properties managed by four leading local agents only seven notices to quit had been served. The truth is that both in London and elsewhere the majority of the decontrolled tenants have already taken up new leases for three years or more.

Mr. Mitchison: I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman is right. I have here an article from the Financial Times of 26th February, and the figures mentioned there show that in London, out of 190,000 decontrolled tenants—if I may so refer to them—only 90,000 have agreed new leases. Thirty thousand have received draft leases and

think the rents too high; 64,000 have received notice to quit, or have not yet heard from their landlords; and 6,000 have been made aware of the fact that their landlords are definitely going to take possession.

Mr. Brooke: I took that article in the Financial Times into consideration, together with a good deal of other information. What I have said is supported by studies that have been made by responsible journalists; by articles in the Estates Gazette which, as the hon. and learned Member probably knows, reports upon what is happening in the property market—perhaps some hon. Members opposite read it each week as carefully as I do—and by information collected by the Chartered Auctioneers' and Estate Agents' Institute.

Mr. Mitchison: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether the figures that I have quoted are right or wrong?

Mr. Brooke: I cannot tell for certain whether the figures are right or wrong, although I think that, broadly speaking, they are well based—and, broadly, they bear out precisely what I have been saying—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Indeed, I doubt whether the hon. and learned Member would care to read out the rest of the article, because it demolishes most of his argument.
In a great many other cases negotiations are still proceeding; in others the tenants are buying the houses from the landlords, often at prices below those which the properties might fetch in the market. In the same way—and this has been acknowledged throughout the Press—the big property companies have, generally speaking, quoted very reasonable new rents to sitting tenants. There are still seven months to go before the end of the standstill period, and in those seven months many more new tenancy agreements are certain to be reached.
I thought that this was the right moment to give a strong word of advice to those landlords who have not yet completed agreements with their tenants. I made it quite clear that my words did not apply to cases where there was a genuine and responsible reason. I have just had a letter about such a case from an elderly lady who wants vacant


possession of her nine-roomed house, in which two people are living as tenants and refuse to budge.

Mr. Lipton: Because they had nowhere to go.

Mr. Barnett Janner: Will the Minister explain why he did not reply to that lady that under the Rent Act she can apply to the court, anyhow—on the ground of hardship—for possession of part of that house, and will get it if the facts are as the Minister has stated?

Mr. Brooke: The reason why I have not replied is because I received the letter only this morning.
There is another common type of case in which irresponsible tenants have been trading upon the inability of the landlords to get rid of them, and a kind of civil war has been going on for years. There are bad landlords and there are bad tenants, and I have no sympathy with either. Cases where genuine hardship may arise are the exceptions, and a good many of them have been caused directly by the Labour Party's thoughtless and misleading pledge to municipalise rented houses. But for this nothing like so many landlords would be wanting to sell. The Labour Party seems to feel quite callous and unconcerned about them. It is adding to the tenants' anxieties, yet we all know that Socialist promises have a way of not being carried out.
Meanwhile, I have given a warning to thoughtless landlords. I have no intention of elaborating it at present. When one gives advice the first thing to do is to allow time to see whether it is taken?

Mr. Lipton: How long?

Mr. Brooke: I have said that I will watch closely how things develop. I had no opportunity either to repeat or to elaborate what I had said in Hampstead on Saturday week when I spoke at Holborn on the following Monday.
I did not imagine for a moment that the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mrs. L. Jeger) would do other than dissociate herself from what happened in her constituency; I am sure that she regretted it as much as the whole of responsible London. I am only sorry that the leader of the St. Pancras Borough Council was mixed up in the affair.
The hon. Lady asked me about making rent increases retrospective. She put down a Question to me about that last week, and I should gladly have answered it but for the fact that she deferred it. I believe that it now stands to be answered by me tomorrow, and I shall give her a properly detailed answer then. I should like to say at once, however, that although it is not for me or any Minister to interpret the Act, the advice that I have been given is that to backdate a three-year lease in the way she describes would mean that it would not be effective to break the standstill period. Indeed, the advice that I have received is contrary to the solicitor's advice quoted by her. If she will put the Question to me tomorrow, however, I shall give her a detailed answer.

Mr. Niall MacDermot: This is a very important point, because this is a very widespread practice. Does the Minister mean that if the lease is merely backdated and is running for only three years from the backdating, that is not sufficient to cause it to escape the other provisions? If the landlord backdates it and makes it a four-year agreement, is the Minister advised that it is not valid?

Mr. Brooke: I should prefer to give a detailed answer tomorrow but I am advised that, broadly speaking, a lease which purports to commence before the date upon which its terms were, in fact, agreed would not represent a tenancy which attracts the operation of paragraph 4 of the Fourth Schedule of the Act.
I have only two points to add; I know that hon. Members on both sides wish to take part in this short debate. I am a London Member, and I probably have as clear a picture of the position in and around London as anyone. Outside London, decontrol is causing difficulty in only a very small number of places. The difficulties are not nation-wide, but where they exist we must not ignore them. We must see whether we can overcome them, as the Amendment says,
in a fair and reasonable manner.
The second point I want to make is that so far as I can judge it is very largely a problem not of the young and able-bodied, but the elderly. That is why I sent a special circular about the


old people to local authorities in November. It is much easier for the younger people to make a move if they have to. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] People who change their jobs constantly have to move; that is nothing to do with the Rent Act. Critics of the Act so often seem to forget that while every move fills one vacancy it creates another. If it is a large house or flat being left empty it can be used to house more people than were in it before, so the Act all the time will be increasing, and not diminishing, available accommodation.
It is not easy for old people to move: I know it is not. Those are the people we all want to see helped, although I really cannot find it in my heart to encourage old people to stay on in houses which are so big that they have become a burden if something better can be found. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] When I said the other day that I was "watching the position closely," I was thinking not only of the small minority of unhelpful landlords, but also of elderly tenants who might find it more difficult than younger people to help themselves. The House should reject the Motion, which gives a one-sided and, therefore, distorted picture.

Mr. Douglas Jay: What is the proper advice to give to an elderly tenant who is threatened with eviction and when the landlord refuses to negotiate at all?

Mr. Brooke: I am not at all sure that all those people who so far have refused to negotiate will, in fact, continue to refuse as the months go by. The Government have no intention of repealing the Rent Act, nor any part of it—

Mr. Jay: Mr. Jay rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Charles MacAndrew): If the Minister does not give way, the right hon. Member is not allowed to intervene.

Mr. Jay: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Did I not ask the Minister a perfectly fair question?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is certainly not a point of order.

Mr. Brooke: I have said the Government have no intention of repealing the Rent Act, nor any part of it. I am

making no forecast, but, if we should conclude that any further steps are necessary to secure that the objects of the Act are accomplished in a fair and reasonable way, we shall take them with the same courage as we showed when we introduced the Rent Bill for the benefit of the nation as a whole.

4.44 p.m.

Mr. Donald Wade: As the time allotted to this debate is short, I shall endeavour to be brief and, I hope, constructive. I do not propose to produce a number of harrowing tales, because I believe that we can put this limited time to better use by discussing this subject as calmly and dispassionately as possible.
The troubles facing us today are, in part, due to the long delay in tackling the Rent Restrictions Acts during the post-war period. The result has been that when a partial measure of decontrol was introduced by the Act of 1957 it came very naturally as a jolt, and a serious jolt, to tenants, particularly in some parts of the country, such as London. More than seven years ago, I advocated in this House an overhaul of the Rent Restrictions Acts. They had become appallingly complicated, they had led to many anomalies and they were also the cause of many houses falling into disrepair and some becoming uninhabitable.
It was clear that something had to be done. If there had been a gradual raising of rents to a more economic level over a period of years, if there had been a very gradual decontrol beginning with houses in the highest rateable value category, much of the hardship might have been avoided. Unfortunately, that policy was not adopted, but, if my analysis of the position is correct, the remedy does not lie in a repeal of the Act of 1957. The problem, rather, is how to minimise the hardship.
In discussing the question whether there should be any legislation to amend the Act of 1957, I think it fair and right that we should consider whether circumstances have altered at all since the Bill was introduced last year and became law. In some respects, the circumstances have altered. In the first place, the threat by the Labour Party to repeal the Act and to adopt its policy of municipalisation, has had an effect. Many landlords who might have been willing


to enter into new tenancy agreements have been deterred from doing so. The Labour Party is perfectly entitled to pursue that policy if it thinks it right. I am merely stating what I believe to be a fact, that it has deterred landlords from granting new tenancies.

Mr. E. Fernyhough: Can the hon. Member give us some evidence of that, as some of us on this side of the House have never met those landlords?

Mr. Wade: Yes, I know of cases where that has happened.

Mr. Fernyhough: Give us the information.

Mrs. Harriet Slater: If that is so, after the Housing Repair and Rents Act passed in 1954, why did landlords not do the repairs?

Mr. Wade: As I forecast when that Act was being discussed, it was very largely a dead letter. I do not want to take up time now discussing that.

Mr. Godfrey Lagden: If the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) is unable to give the evidence required, I can give it to him.

Mr. Wade: May I give another case of change of circumstances which hon. Members on the Government side of the House will perhaps not like so much?

Mr. Denis Howell: Is this what the hon. Member said in Rochdale?

Mr. James Griffiths: Would the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) say that the statement he is now making is official Liberal Party policy?

Mr. Wade: Yes, it is, and is in accordance with speeches I have made on a number of occasions in many parts of the country, including Rochdale.
Another change in circumstances has been Government policy. One must face the fact that the credit squeeze and the increase in interest rates has made it more difficult for tenants who wish either to buy houses they occupy or other houses, to raise the necessary mortgage. Therefore, it is clear that mobility, particularly so far as it involves buying another house, has been made more difficult by

this change of circumstances. For those reasons, there is a strong case for some amending legislation. I am not making any new departure in Liberal policy. This has been stated in resolutions by the Liberal Party Council and by the Society of Liberal Lawyers.
The question we have to consider is what form this amending legislation should take. One suggestion is that there should be postponement of the particular Section of the Act coming into force in October. I do not think that a general postponement of the date when the right of possession of decontrolled property takes effect would prove to be the best way of dealing with this problem. It would amount to shelving the real difficulty to be faced later. It would be an easy way out for the Minister, but not, I think, the best way in the long run.
Then there is the suggestion that local authorities should be asked to intervene. Frankly, I do not feel very strongly in favour of the proposal that local authorities should requisition houses where landlords have acted unreasonably and have refused to come to terms with their tenants. I do not think that the responsibility should be thrown on the local authorities. They would have a very invidious task to carry out, and it would probably lead to great divergence as between different local authorities in the use which they made of this power. I certainly feel no enthusiasm for reverting to the practice of requisitioning, which was an unpleasant but necessary wartime measure.

Mr. C. W. Gibson: It still is.

Mr. Wade: What are we to do? There is no simple solution, but I think that our attention should be directed mainly to the procedure on eviction, and I am asking the Minister to pay particular attention to this aspect. As I understand, the court has no power to refuse an eviction order if the premises are decontrolled. I believe that the court should have the power to refuse an order in certain circumstances, and I propose to outline these circumstances very broadly.
If the Minister is not able to accept the suggestion, perhaps I might say now that my colleagues and I will abstain from voting. We do not wish to associate ourselves with the Opposition Motion,


because we do not accept the general line of policy put forward by the Labour Party on this subject.
I suggest that the court should have the power to refuse an order for eviction in respect of a decontrolled house if the tenant proves that he has made every reasonable effort to obtain alternative accommodation. That is the first point. Secondly, it should not prevent landlords from obtaining possession, on the grounds permitted under the Rent Acts for controlled premises. For example, the landlord should be entitled to an order if he requires the premises for his own use. Thirdly, to be fair, the tenant of decontrolled premises should not be placed in a more favourable position as regards rent than tenants of controlled premises.
I do not think that that presents an insuperable difficulty, but the court should be satisfied that the tenant has given an undertaking to pay a rent not less than the increased rent to which the landlord would be entitled if the premises were still controlled under the Rent Act, 1957. I think that a method of calculation could be laid down with reasonable clarity, but I am not going into the details, because I wish to be short and deal only with the general principle.

Mr. Albert Evans: I presume that the hon. Member has read the debates in Committee on the Rent Bill. May I suggest that he should refresh his memory, because he will find that most of the suggestions he is now putting forward about reasonable rent and the efforts of the tenant to find alternative accommodation were put to the Minister in Committee and rejected by the Minister.

Mr. Wade: I did not serve on that Committee, and, therefore, I am not able to comment on that point.
I ought to deal with one objection that may be put forward to the proposal I have been advocating. The objection may be made that, under my proposal, the burden of proof is thrown on the tenant, but I do not think it would be unreasonable to ask the tenant to show that he or she has endeavoured unsuccessfully to obtain alternative accommodation. If the tenant had been to the local authority and had been told that it had nothing to offer, and had then gone to a number of local estate agents

and had again been told that there was nothing, except perhaps a suite at the Ritz Hotel, that, I think, should be accepted as evidence and should suffice. The burden of proof would then fall on the landlord to show, if he could, that there was suitable alternative accommodation.
I believe that if this power to refuse an order for eviction was granted, there would be very many fewer cases of eviction, and that unscrupulous landlords would be much more inclined either to enter into new agreements with their tenants or to find suitable alternative accommodation for them, and the main object of alleviating hardship in districts where there is a high scarcity value would be achieved.
I do not necessarily regard this proposal as one which should become a permanent feature of our landlord and tenant legislation. The ultimate objective must be to achieve that balance of supply and demand, with which I am sure we all agree, but I think that the proposals I have suggested, and the modifications of the law to which I have referred, would be preferable to setting up rent tribunals all over the country.

Mr. Rees-Davies: I am following with great interest the general line of argument and the particular points which the hon. Members has put forward, but I should like to ask him about what is the really difficult point. Let us take the case of the old widow who owns one house and who, for financial reasons, wants to recover it, while the tenants are a couple of retirement pensioners. Should not the landlord be allowed to claim not only for benefit of occupation but also for financial hardship, which would be an entirely new element for the court to decide?

Mr. Wade: I believe that it would be wiser to stick to the provisions of the existing Rent Restrictions Acts. I think it would be rather difficult to introduce a new condition into decontrolled premises, because that would make it much more complicated.
Finally, I should like to refer to the warnings which have been uttered by the Minister. Personally, I do not think that they will achieve the desired objective. The kind of landlord who would listen to those warnings would probably


come to reasonably satisfactory agreements with his tenants. The kind of landlords who are unscrupulous, and are out to take every possible advantage of the existing scarcity of accommodation, will not, I fear, take very much notice of the Minister's warning. Therefore, I would say that if anything is to be done, it should be done speedily. I do not believe that there is plenty of time. I am quite convinced that if the Minister is to act at all, he should act at once.

4.58 p.m.

Mr. John Hay: The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) has given the House an interesting speech, and I think that the pleasure which so many of us always enjoy when a Liberal makes a speech was again evident today. We saw the hon. Member wrestling with his conscience, not knowing whether to vote for the Amendment, the Motion or to abstain. I suggest—

Mr. Wade: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman so soon, but I should like to make it clear that if the Government will accept the proposals I have put forward we shall vote for the Government Amendment. Frankly, the picture which is outlined in the Amendment is somewhat rosy, but if our suggestions are not accepted we shall abstain.

Mr. Hay: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that clarification of the position. We now know where he and, presumably, his hon. Friends stand in the matter.
It is clear from the speeches already made that the debate, which is tantamount to a Motion of Censure on the Government, revolves around, and will continue to revolve around, one main feature of the Rent Act. That is the feature of decontrol. I propose to confine my remarks to this matter only, although there is a great deal that one could say about the other aspects of the Act.
I believe that three questions are uppermost in the minds of hon. Members. The first is: was the policy of decontrol a right policy? Were the Government right in introducing a measure of decontrol? The second is: are the provisions for decontrol working well or badly? Thirdly, does the policy need to be modified or changed? I should like

to say something about each of these three points.
First, as far as the original policy was concerned, I think it is absolutely right to say that it was the correct policy for the Government to introduce. Decontrol was not brought in just to be beastly to tenants. It is not as if the Government had a grudge against tenants. It was done for one reason only—to contribute to the solution of the nation's housing problem. That fact must always be remembered.
The solution of the nation's housing problem still depends on two things. The first is a high and continuous rate of new building, and I think that my right hon. Friend did right this afternoon to underline the figures, because not sufficient attention in the debate so far has been paid to the steadily expanding output of new building. The second facet of the policy must be to assure a system of realistic rents and the removal of the distortions of rent control. Until and unless both of these things are done at the same time we shall never solve our housing problem.
I hope that the House will remember that we are trying to help a very wide section of our community. There are a number of cases about which one hears of elderly people being affected by the Rent Act, but I hope the House will also bear in mind the claims of the younger members of the community. We heard a very interesting and somewhat moving speech by the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras South (Mrs. L. Jeger). I, personally, was very impressed with what the hon. Lady said about the need for providing living accommodation in the centre of our big cities for younger people who have to work in those cities.
This is something that we have to do, but we shall not do it, I suggest, if we maintain a policy of freezing the pattern of occupation of elderly people who, in many cases, would be far happier and far better off if they moved out of the centre of big cities and went to live with their relatives or in smaller accommodation. I hope that the House will try to keep a sense of perspective on the matter, because I think that the claims of our younger people, with their way to make and their children to bring up, need to be considered from time to time.
I pass now to the second point. How is the policy of decontrol working? We have heard during the course of the debate, and shall no doubt hear again, a lot about the "Notices to regain possession," as they are correctly called—notices to quit on Form S—which have been served by landlords. It is only right to consider for a moment why these notices have been served. Landlords have not served such notices simply because they think it is a good or clever thing to do. They have been served for a number of reasons.
First, there is some legal doubt—I put it no higher than that—whether or not a landlord, before he can negotiate a new three-year tenancy under paragraph 4 of the Fourth Schedule of the Act, should or should not have given notice to recover possession. It is a tricky point. It depends upon the wording of paragraphs 2 and 4 of the Fourth Schedule. I believe that many landlords have received very definite legal advice to the effect that they must, first, to get themselves into a right position as it were, to give themselves a sort of locus standi, serve a notice to recover possession—Form S—under the regulations prescribed by the Minister under the Act.

Mr. H. Brooke: I am sure that my hon. Friend will forgive me for intervening, but I must point out that the legal advice available to me is directly contrary to that.

Mr. Hay: I was just about to say exactly that. I said that there was a doubt, and I put it no higher than that. Many landlords have been given such advice, which may be wrong, and it is because they have been so advised that they have served these notices.
I now come to the next group of landlords in this situation. There are many landlords who have served these notices who never intend to negotiate a three-year tenancy with their tenants, but who nevertheless do not intend to turn out their tenants. They intend to put themselves right with the Act by serving the notices and then, in October, when the period of protection runs out, to offer a weekly, monthly or quarterly tenancy to the tenants.

Mr. Julius Silverman: How does the hon. Gentleman know?

Mr. Hay: I know because I am keeping in fairly close touch with the situation. I saw a letter from Leeds—my right hon. Friend has also seen it—which says that that is happening on a very wide scale there. There are many property owners and landlords who do not intend to turn out their tenants, but who, on the other hand, do not want to tie themselves to a three-year lease.

Mr. Lipton: Why do they not say so?

Mr. Herbert Butler: I wish to put a point to the hon. Gentleman, who, I think, is always fair in his explanation of these matters. How does the tenant who has received notice to quit know what is in the mind of the landlord?

Mr. Hay: He does not know unless the landlord chooses to tell him, or unless he makes his own inquiries. That is what my right hon. Friend meant in his Hampstead speech when he said that the landlords should try to clear up these difficulties. They should act properly.

Mr. Silverman: Surely it is not necessary for a landlord to serve notice to quit in order to enforce an increase of rent in October.

Mr. Hay: That is perfectly true, but my point is that many landlords, like many tenants, do not know. They have a broad idea of what the Act is all about. They have bought the little green book issued by the Ministry and they have tried to puzzle the matter out. One thing that sticks in their minds, against the background of forty years of rent control, is that after 7th July last year they could serve on the tenant a notice to quit and that that notice can eventually be enforced. That is the main thing they have in their minds.
We must accept the fact that some landlords will ask their tenants to quit, but the vast majority are asking their tenants to continue occupation on different terms. We know that that is so because evidence coming from every quarter of the country shows that a large number of such agreements are being made. We know, too, that every landlord who intends to go on in the property business does not want to evict his tenants. He wants them to remain, but to pay a proper rent and to observe the conditions of the tenancy.

Mr. Gibson: If what the hon. Gentleman says about Leeds is also true of the big property companies in London, that they do not know what they are doing, then they are serving these notices to quit in October on wrong advice.

Mr. Hay: The big companies who have the funds can get the right advice. I am talking about the small landlords. I am trying to examine why landlords are failing to negotiate. I think it is largely due to the fact that many of them do not intend to evict their tenants but, at the end of the protection period, intend to offer them weekly or monthly or quarterly tenancies.

Mr. Lipton: Mr. Liptonrose—

Mr. Hay: I have given way three times times and I hope that I may be permitted to continue my speech.
Another group of landlords are those who, frankly, want possession in order to sell. They want to unlock the capital which they have had locked up in these properties for so long, and the threats of municipalisation made by the Labour Party have a great deal to do with the attitude of many of these people. They see the opportunity of selling with vacant possession, as they think. They see the alternative, if hon. Members opposite are elected at the next Election, of losing their property for some undisclosed compensation. I will not argue about that with the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). They also see that the credit squeeze is making it more and more difficult for people to buy.
It is hardly surprising that many of these people say, "Let me get out of this game while I can. Let me try to get the tenant out and to sell on the open market as quickly as possible." I think that, in practice, many of them will be forced into re-letting, against their will in fact, because I believe that the physical and financial circumstances will be such that they will not be able to sell.
There is a fourth group, those who want to live in the property themselves. Many of them let their properties either before or during the war and have been trying ever since to get it back. Many of them do not know their legal rights; they do not know that since the Rent Act more of them have been able to go to the courts and get a possession order

on the ground of greater hardship. I know that that has been in the Act, but many of them do not know. They have thought that they had to serve a notice to quit and to wait until October and that they would then get the tenants out. There are many who want possession to live in the property themselves.

Mr. Janner: The hon. Member knows very well that in a vast number of the cases where the question of hardship has arisen, these people took advice from solicitors or from some legal aid society and, consequently, knew the position very well. The courts have acted on that matter. The hon. Member cannot advance that argument now.

Mr. Hay: The hon. Member has completely misunderstood me. Perhaps I expressed myself badly. I said that there is another group of landlords who have been serving notices to quit and refusing to negotiate three-year tenancies simply because they want to live in the property themselves.
There is a fifth group consisting of those who have been saddled for years with thoroughly unsatisfactory tenants. Let us face it, there are a great many unsatisfactory tenants. For instance, there are dirty tenants. I have some photographs here of a house in Edmonton which was left in a most appalling state by tenants some years ago. There are a number of these photographs, which I cannot display to the House, but anybody who looks at them will be revolted by what he sees. It shows the sort of thing which many landlords have had to put up with. Such landlords do not want to re-let. They want to get out of the letting business altogether. In addition, there are a number of landlords who want to pay off old scores. Let us face that fact, too.
A question which I raised at the beginning of my remarks was whether it was the right time for some kind of modification of the policy behind the Act. In face of all the evidence which we have had up to now, my own view is that it is too early by far to talk about modifying or amending the Act. I appreciate the views of the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West but I was delighted—and I say that advisedly—to hear my right hon. Friend today give a categorical assurance that the Act is not to be amended, because


I think nothing would do more harm than to make unspecified or vague promises about some action that would amend the Act.
After all, a great many people have changed their position already under the Act and we still have a long time to go. It is another month before the last date for giving the notice to expire in October—6th April. It is seven months before the first eviction can take place. Let me remind the House that in seven months we shall be approximately 150,000 new houses to the good compared with the present situation. There will be another 150,000 new houses by the time the "massive evictions" talked about by hon. Members opposite take place. I think that the closer we come to the end of the year the more clearly shall we be able to see and measure the extent of the problem.
I would, therefore, suggest to my right hon. Friend, with all respect, that his actions from now on should be governed by three major considerations. The first is that it is clear that some kind of safety net, if I may so call it, some kind of protective mechanism, must be created to meet the very worst cases of the old people who cannot fend for themselves and who have no relatives to look after them. There must be some protection for those cases, but I suggest to my right hon. Friend that it must not take the form of ensuring that these people stay where they are, come what may. I think that this is the sort of action that the local authority, as housing authority, could easily take in order to look after such people. I am sure that my right hon. Friend and the Minister of Health could work out something reasonable, logical and sensible.
The second consideration which he ought to have in his mind—and I say this with all respect—is that he should do nothing to give a disincentive to landlords to let. I think that to make wild or vague or unspecified threats of "big sticks" would be extremely dangerous, because it would make a large number of landlords still more determined not to re-let if they get the chance but to wait until they are forced by the Government to re-let. That would make them less ready to negotiate on the kind of terms on which we all want to see them negotiate.
Finally, I suggest, again with respect to my right hon. Friend, that if he is troubled by the hostile eruptions which come from the other side of the House, he should keep his eye on the ball; he should keep his eye on what we are trying to do in the Act. What the Government have been trying to do throughout the whole of their housing policy for the last few years has been to create a supply of enough houses for the people of this country. I urge my right hon. Friend not to amend the Act but to see the question always in the perspective of solving our housing problem, not to be dismayed, but to carry on as he has carried on so far.

5.18 p.m.

Mrs. E. M. Braddock: I want to draw attention very forcibly to what is happening in the area I represent and also to cases which I have received from elsewhere.
I listened to the Minister's remarks and to the statement which he made, and I think that he is very badly informed about what is the situation throughout the country. He is heading for very serious trouble in the country about October. He says that the people in difficulty are very limited in number and he quotes figures which he has obtained to try to prove it. But I have been watching the Press, and I find that all the newspapers are concerned about the matter and are asking people to write to them. That applies to all sections of the Press. Throughout the Press of the country letters are being published about the difficulties and the distress in which people are being placed, particularly by the decontrol Section of the Act.
I saw one of these letters last week with which I agree very sincerely indeed. I intend to read it, to say what I think about it and to state what advice I shall give to my constituents who are in this position. I hope that people throughout the country will take notice of it when I have given that advice.
The letter to which I refer appeared in the Star last week and it was headed "I'm staying put." It reads:
Sir, My landlord gave me notice to quit and refused to extend the tenancy. I wrote to his agent and said I was not prepared to vacate the premises unless I had found suitable alternatice accommodation, and that is the advice I give to anyone placed in a similar position to myself.


I shall give that advice—and people take some note of my opinions. I shall advise them not to take any steps now, but to stay put in their homes if the landlord refuses to negotiate or to help them to secure alternative accommodation. The Minister deserves to have that happen.
If the Minister comes to Liverpool, he will get something worse than what he had at Holborn. I shall not apologise if he comes to Liverpool and the people there do what the people in Holborn did; I shall glory in it, because his whole attitude is of a total and utter disregard for people in these circumstances.
He said that these cases were found only here and there and related to only certain landlords. Of course, there are some good landlords, but it is not those about whom we are bothered. The landlords about whom we are concerned are those who are refusing to allow tenants to continue to live in houses which they have occupied for a long time. As has been said, they are mostly elderly people and the landlords are refusing to give them any consideration, whether in new tenancies or in new agreements about what they should pay.
Many landlords are offering agreements to their tenants, but at rents which they know their tenants to be incapable of paying. They are thus waiting for the full sanction of the Rent Act to be able to go to the courts to obtain an eviction order. The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) referred to the courts deciding in these matters, but the amazing situation is that when a landlord goes to the court to seek an eviction order, the court has no power to refuse that order.

Mr. Janner: There is no need to go to the court. A tenant can be turned out by the landlord's bailiff and have his furniture put on the street.

Mrs. Braddock: I do not quite agree with my hon. Friend on that, but I do not want to argue. As I understand the position, the landlord has to go to the court for an eviction order and the bailiff cannot enter the house without such an order. Whatever the situation is, if the landlord has to go to the court, the court cannot refuse to grant an eviction order. We have no need to talk about that procedure. A tenant can be evicted either as

a result of a court order, or by the landlord. Let us leave it at that.
The point is that under decontrol a tenant can be put on the streets unless there is an agreement. I want to read a letter. It is not from my constituency, but it is the type of letter which is coming to every hon. Member on this side of the House and—if they are honest—to hon. Members opposite as well. I do not want to quote names without permission of the people concerned, but this letter comes from Buckinghamshire. It says:
Away from Liverpool—not many miles from Parliament—I am threatened with the street—eviction—in October—just one of thousands unless something is done quickly—even a further period before eviction is operative. Twenty-two years' occupation of 'Ruby Cottage'—wife and I approaching 61 years of age—legal notice 'buy at landlord's price or quit in October, 1958.' Replied prepared to pay higher rent as authorised by Act—this the landlord rejected. Not in a position to buy so we worry and wonder and await the next opportunity to vote.
If the Minister wants to see the name and address on that letter, he can do so, but it is not fair to quote it in the House without the permission of the people concerned.
Let me refer to another case in my constituency, one which I must in all fairness say has been straightened out, mainly because the landlord was afraid that what happened to the Minister in Holborn might happen to him in my constituency—and perhaps a bit worse if he did not do something about the matter. This concerns an elderly woman of 70 years of age who has lived in the house for fifty-seven years. She has received notice to quit in October. The reason given in the notice to quit is that the rent which the owner could obtain for the property as industrial premises is very much more than the rent he could get if it remained as residential premises.
The Minister may reply that that cannot be done. I know that, but that is the reason which has been given. When I interviewed the landlord—rather, when he interviewed me on Saturday morning—he told me that although he is getting 19s. 6d. rent for the premises, he will not ask for anything more from the present tenant because he has been offered £20 a week rent for the use of the premises for industrial purposes. I know that town and country planning legislation will not


allow that change, but people do not know these things and when an old lady of 70 years of age, with nowhere to go, receives such a notice, what is she to do? As I have said, that matter has been straightened out and I do not want to deal with it in detail.
Most of the trouble arises because the Act gives landlords not only power but licence. By the Act the Minister has created a scarcity value for houses which it is sought to sell. The population has increased by two million and Liverpool still has 35,000 applicants on the housing register. Some of them have no hope of getting accommodation because they are not in slum clearance areas.
All the stress is given to slum clearance, but newly married couples want accommodation. Local authorities cannot build houses without subsidies and that results in priority being given to slum clearance. The Minister may reply that when people are taken out of a slum clearance area, other people could take over the property they vacate, but that would merely confuse the situation.
Whether the Minister knows it or not, the position is very serious and there will be trouble in the country before October unless something is done about landlords who are not prepared to discuss alternative terms, but who want to get vacant possession in order to sell the property. If Governments put on the Statute Book Acts which put upon the community heavy burdens which sections of the community cannot stand, then they are inciting people to break the law. [HON. MEMBERS: "You are."] I am. I am saying that that is what the Minister has done. I take responsibility for what I say. The right hon. Gentleman is a Minister. I might have to take a different view if I ever became a Minister, but I never will.
I say quite honestly that unless something is done about this matter, I will advise those people who come to me to stay in their places. This has had to be done before in this country under a similar sort of Government. People have had to be barricaded in their houses to prevent them being evicted.
It is not only the ordinary people who are being put into these difficulties. People in the higher-income groups are being affected. Oddly enough, people with lower incomes who live in controlled

houses and who have to pay increased rents are scared stiff of giving landlords an opportunity to put them out. Do not let it be thought that there is no grumbling about the 7s. 6d. a week increase. There is plenty of that, but those people are scared stiff because they know that there is someone waiting to pay a much bigger amount if their houses become decontrolled through being vacated.
The Minister is giving licence to those who want to get rid of their property at a scarcity value and is doing something totally unjust to people who want to stay in their homes. These people are not all extremists. The Minister is giving those who are in the Communist tenants' associations—they are not all Communist-
controlled, though many of them are—an opportunity to do the things which he has not enabled people to do legally. The Minister and his Government are inciting people to break the law. They have done so deliberately by this Act. They promised in their 1951 manifesto that they would give property owners an opportunity to get something back which they thought they had been denied for a long time.
I have said that not all property owners are bad. I had a letter from one in my own constituency who says that he has not raised the rents of any of the properties which he owns and that he has no intention of selling, but he says that people in his area are very concerned about the situation and are asking him about it. He offers a suggestion for an improvement. Perhaps when we criticise what the Government have done it is as well to mention suggestions from people who will have to apply the Act, people who are in the middle of this great difficulty, to see what they think about it.
This person says:
My suggestion is that where, as a result of the Rent Act, a landlord is in a position to sell a house with vacant possession, the selling price should be controlled, i.e., he should only be able to sell it at its investment value and not vacant possession value, the investment price to be based on what the rent was before the Act decontrolled them.
I received this letter only when I arrived at the House today. It suggests holding down the price of property when the owners want to sell. It is no use the Minister saying that this has resulted from something that we on these benches have said. Whenever a Government get


into a difficulty—all Governments do it—they always blame somebody else. The Minister is blaming the party on this side of the House, because the Labour Party has been discussing the question of the transfer of houses to local authority or public ownership. That is only a get-out. He does not believe it; neither does anybody else.
The Minister has given licence to those landlords who want to sell on scarcity value. He has done something which his party promised it would do in the 1951 Election manifesto. I warn the right hon. Gentleman and the Government that unless they take some steps to stop this sort of thing, they are in for some trouble when the Act comes to be operated.
I noticed in the Sunday Times yesterday a report which perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could explain. It is headed:
No return to control of rents.
Apparently the right hon. Gentleman had an interview with the Sunday Times and, according to this report, he made a peculiar statement. He said:
If you think your rent increases excessive, consult your local house agent. Get him to negotiate with the landlord on your behalf and, wherever possible, act in conjunction with other tenants, for in these matters unity is strength.
Well, he is coming on a bit. That is one of our slogans, and it is a slogan which I shall suggest to those tenants who are to be forcibly put out, unless the right hon. Gentleman alters this Section of the Act which is about to cause great hardship to the people.
I suggest that one of the first things the Minister should do is to ask those people who will be in a difficulty to write to him and give him the details. He should make an individual inquiry of every one of them. He should find out whether it is right, as has been suggested, that the landlord does not really know the situation and does not understand, and that he is giving notice only because he thinks he has got to do so. Most of the notices that I have seen do not bear that implication. They imply that the landlords or the owners have said, "We want this property; we can get more for it by selling it. We want to cash in on the Tory Government's policy while

they are in power because we know that we shall not be able to cash in on it afterwards."
May I quote some rents which were published in a London newspaper today? I think they should all go on the record in HANSARD. It says, "Property shares up." Let us look at the facts. The figures in 1956 are compared with the present-day figures in respect of various companies. Taking Alliance Property, its lowest figure in 1956 was 1s. and it is now 1s. 10½d. Beaumont Property Trust was 23s. 9d. and it is now 30s. 9d. Bell London was 21s. and is now 32s. 6d. Berkeley Property & Investment was 5s. 1d. and is now 7s. 10½d.; London County Freehold 20s. 10d., 26s. 9d.; London and Westcliff 14s. 6d., 33s. 9d.; Metropolitan Estate and Property Corporation 24s., 32s. 9d.; A. Peachey & Co., 6s. 9d., 11s. 1½d.; Raglan Property Trust, 1s. 4d., 2s. 3d.; Regis Property 34s. 9d., 42s. 6d.

Mr. Hay: I should make it clear that I do not own any shares in any of the companies mentioned or in any other property of the kind mentioned, but does not the hon. Lady realise that the sort of dividends which she has been quoting—

Mr. Arthur Skeffington: They are not dividends; they are prices.

Mr. Hay: —very well, prices; does she not realise that they are not based solely on earnings from dwelling accommodation, but that many of these property-owning companies—in fact, most of them, I think—have large commercial and industrial properties from which they make their profits?

Mrs. Braddock: If the hon. Gentleman had allowed me, I was about to finish quoting from this report. It concludes by saying:
Most of the companies also own shop and office property.
The peculiar thing is that the prices have not been going up until this Act was passed. That is the basis of the matter. When there is something to grab, up go the prices. It is because of what the Act has done; it is because the property market will have the time of its life that these people are cashing in on the Act. I would add, in passing, that


this newspaper report also states that while these prices have gone up, industrial shares have gone down. The whole situation is one of private enterprise grab. It is the effect of the capitalist system of society, and as long as it is there, we shall have the difficulties and the differences which exist between those who have the opportunity to grab everything and these poor devils who have got to crawl and take the least of what is left.

Mr. Diamond: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that this is against a background of falling shares, and the proportionate increase, therefore, was infinitely higher?

Mrs. Braddock: Hon. Members opposite know that. There is no need to tell them that.
I hope the Minister—I know it is only a forlorn hope—will consider this matter. Difficulties enough have been created. People have made agreements to pay more than they can afford to pay even now, because they are scared stiff of being on the streets. It is no use asking local authorities to do anything more about it. Because of increased interest rates, local authorities cannot borrow the money to buy properties which the Minister suggests they should buy to turn into flats for other people. Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that the people—and not only those who have always voted for my party but his own people—are sick and tired of the things which he and his Government have been doing, especially in relation to rents?
If the Minister is so positive that what he has done is right, if he is not living in a world of make-believe, why does not he realise that the wisest think would be to allow democracy to decide, by asking the people whether the Government should go on with the sort of thing they are doing? That would be honest, but this Government are dishonest, and will be shown to be so as soon as the electorate has an opportunity to say so.

5.40 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Marlowe: That there is a residual problem in relation to evictions under the Rent Act is something upon which we are agreed. The hon. Lady the Member for Liverpool, Exchange (Mrs. Braddock) greatly exaggerated the case, but that there is a

problem is accepted, and it is a matter to which we ought to turn our attention.
As one who has not been able to find himself marching entirely in step with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government on this matter ever since its inception, I should like to say that I took some encouragement from his concluding words in what I thought was a wholly admirable speech this afternoon. My right hon. Friend finished his speech by saying that, if, as matters progressed, it became evident that some action was necessary, the Government would have the courage to take it. I find encouragement in those words.
From the inception of the Act, I have taken the view that the way evictions were likely to operate ought to be modified, and I have never really changed that view. There have been forty years or more of control, and I do not believe that one ought to abolish that situation in a way which brings it to its conclusion too suddenly. There are certain ways in which the blow could be softened to the sitting tenants.
My right hon. Friend took the view that the fifteen-months' procedure which he put into operation was satisfactory for that purpose. I never shared that view, but I put before him an entirely different proposal, that, from the date when the Act was first published, a sitting tenant should be given three years' security of tenure under a new lease, and that, if there were difficulty in agreeing the rent, it should be settled by the county court. That was the substance of the proposal I made, and the principle is one to which I still adhere. Obviously, much time has passed since then and the actual proposal, in that form, would not now be appropriate. I was, however, greatly impressed by the advice given to the House by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade), speaking from the Liberal benches, and I thought that some of the schemes he put forward deserved further investigation by the Government.
The Government must direct their attention to finding some way of relieving the problem of the sitting tenant who has been in occupation for many years. It may be that there is not a vast number of such cases. I understand that there are only 800,000 houses decontrolled


under the Act; but, even if the proportion of problem cases is only 10 per cent., it means that there are about 80,000 of them. That is a great deal too many for us to tolerate. It would not be acceptable to the people of the country that the occupants of about 80,000 houses should find themselves thrown out on to the street, particularly when many of them have been in occupation for a long time.
I do not believe that the problem is insoluble. There are certain ways in which it can be solved. I do not intend to elaborate them this afternoon, because I have promised to take only a short time, but I impress upon the Government that they cannot leave the matter where it is. It is important to adhere to the main principles of the Act—I support the Government entirely on the question of decontrol, and I think that the Act was absolutely right in principle—but the problem which arises is how to work it so as to avoid hardship. All of us have constituents who present us with these problems, and all of us should exert our minds to find a way of resolving them.
One hon. Member, when moving the Second Reading of one of the Private Bills introduced under the Ten Minutes Rule recently, put forward the suggestion that a new rent should be settled by the arbitration of rent tribunals. I do not myself approve that; it is far better, in my view, that any disputes of this kind should be resolved in the ordinary courts of the land. Objection was taken to my proposal that it would cause too much congestion in the courts. I do not believe that it would, because, in practice, things do not happen quite in that way. A few cases are brought in each district, and the landlords and tenants together very soon get an idea of the sort of way the problem is being resolved, and that process hastens them towards agreement among themselves.
I believe that there should be some method by which it would be possible to ensure that, before a tenant is evicted, his case is heard in one of the appropriate courts of the land. He should be protected from eviction for some substantial period of time. In that way would be preserved the principle of decontrol, in which I thoroughly believe, and hardships would be avoided.
My right hon. Friend knows, I think, that I had felt myself in some difficulty as to whether I could support him in the Lobby tonight. As I say, I was encouraged by the words which he used, but I still want to be satisfied that the Government have not wholly rejected the idea of taking action as it becomes more evidently necessary. I agree that a proposal to amend the Act is probably too late now. We certainly cannot have postponement of the whole principle—still less repeal of the Act—but I feel that it would be possible for the Government to introduce legislation to make sure that, when 6th October comes, those who are threatened with eviction have some kind of protection. I hope that my right hon. Friend will keep this in mind and make sure that those who are so threatened are protected by legislation in this House. People look to the House to protect them, and we ought to give that protection.

5.47 p.m.

Miss Alice Bacon: The hon. and learned Member for Hove (Mr. Marlowe) made a very honest and courageous speech, the purport and feeling of which, I believe, would be shared by many hon. Members opposite, if they were honest. What I could not quite understand was where he found any encouragement in the speech of the Minister this afternoon. Bearing in mind the sufferings of thousands of people in the country, I thought that the right hon. Gentleman's speech was incredible and absolutely disgraceful; it did not give any crumb of hope whatsoever to those suffering in their thousands outside.
The Minister said that the Labour Party was callous and unconcerned about housing. "Callous and unconcerned"—what words to come from the right hon. Gentleman. As I listened to his speech, I wished that we had reached the stage of having our proceedings televised so that people outside could see and hear the kind of speech he made. [An HON. MEMBER: "They might switch off."] They might switch off, or they might, of course, damage their own sets.
We warned the Government what it would mean when the Act was passed, but the amount of hardship has been greater than even we expected at that time. A great deal has been said this afternoon about the tenants of decontrolled houses and the enormously increased rents which are being charged.


and much has been said also about those having no option but to leave their homes in October this year. There will be complete chaos when October comes. In my constituency, not so very many houses have been decontrolled, for I represent the centre of a large city which, like the centres of most of our large cities, is full of unfit and insanitary houses—a great many of them.
This afternoon the right hon. Gentleman blandly stated that only 13,000 certificates of disrepair had been issued. Is he suggesting that of those houses where there has been an increase of rent only 13,000 of them are unfit? There are 13,000 in Leeds alone and thousands in many other parts. It is true that slum-clearance areas were not to be affected by an increase in rent, but there is a very narrow definition in the Act of what is a slum area, and only those houses which have already been represented to the Minister come into that category. The hopes of these people living in these unfit houses were pinned on the certificates of disrepair. They have discovered that the obtaining of a certificate of disrepair is the longest, the most complicated and the most unfair procedure ever devised. Whatever happens, in the end the landlord wins.
No wonder people have not gone right through with it. It took some people a matter of weeks to obtain a Form G. It was not until we were able to produce them that many people were able to obtain them. But the obtaining of a Form G is merely the beginning of a long and complicated process. First, they have to serve it on the landlord, completed in the appropriate manner. The landlord at this stage is allowed six weeks in which to decide, not whether he will do the repairs, but whether he will promise to do the repairs. If he promises to do the repairs he is given six months in which to do them. If within six weeks he does not undertake to do the repairs, it is only at that stage that the tenant goes to the local authority with half a crown—I do not know whether tenants are required to take the half a crown.
The local authority then takes time to go to the house to inspect it. Incidentally, there is only a certain number of sanitary inspectors in Leeds to do this work. Even then the certificate of disrepair is not

granted, because by this Act the local authority is then to give the landlord another three weeks after the six weeks to decide whether to do the repairs. If he decides to do them, he then has six months in which to do them. We reckon that it could take ten months from a tenant obtaining a Form G, for a certificate of disrepair to the time when the actual repairs are done.
That, however, is not the whole story, because at the end of that six months the landlord might have defaulted and not done the repairs. Indeed that has already happened in some cases. All this time the landlord has been receiving an increased rent. This is a disgraceful state of affairs. It is true that the Act makes provision for a tenant to deduct from future rent any rent that might have been paid if at the end of the period the landlord has not done the repairs. I would like to ask the Minister a question, because this matter is not clear in my constituency. The tenant has a right to stop the rent. Supposing, however, that the tenant does not know all these legalities, is the landlord committing an offence if he goes on collecting the rent and does not tell the tenant that it should be lowered? That is not understood in my constituency.
Regarding certificates of disrepair, it seems to me that tenants must have a knowledge of the law far and above that possessed by the ordinary people of the country. The onus in every case under every Section is always on the tenant. No wonder the right hon. Gentleman can blandly say today that only 13,000 certificates of disrepair have been issued. We know perfectly well that many more thousands of forms have been filled in, but in this long process some tenants have given up altogether or there has been a hitch and they have not been able to carry the matter through to the end. In any case, the right hon. Gentleman has no figures whatsoever to show how many of the original forms have been served on landlords by tenants because, obviously, those figures are not available.
I would like to mention one other point which has not been mentioned this afternoon. If in the past a tenant has made a considerable alteration to his house out of his own money this can be taken into account in the rent increase. But Form T had to be in by 17th August.


Hardly anybody in the country was aware of the fact that that had to be done. Even though an increase of rent was not asked for, that form had to be in by 17th August.
May I give one example. A man of over 70 years of age came to see me. He had lived in his house for about 20 to 30 years. His rateable value was £32. He had been given notice to quit with no option whatever of coming to an alternative arrangement with the landlord. He told me that, among other things, he had put a new floor in his kitchen, had put in new fireplaces and made many alterations and improvements. But he came to me a month too late. It was after 17th August. Had the man known this or had the date been made a little later for the purposes of the Act, the £32 rateable value would probably have been reduced to below £30, and he would still have been in a controlled house. I appeal to the Minister to promise that the date 17th August will be extended, because nobody in the country knew anything about it.
The Government have not only passed an unjust and complicated piece of legislation, but have left the people to fend for themselves. Thank goodness there was a Labour Party in this country, a Labour Party that set up advice bureaux, a Labour Party that gave help and advice, a Labour Party that gave guidance, and a Labour Party that came to the help of the people when they were deserted by the Government. Let me give on example. We have distributed 1½ million explanatory leaflets telling the people what their rights are under the Rent Act. In Birmingham alone 20,000 poeple have gone through the advice bureau. It has been left to the Labour Party to try to explain this complicated piece of legislation.

Mr. Geoffrey Hirst: Quite untrue.

Miss Bacon: A leaflet has gone out from the Tory Party Central Office to say—I am sure these are the instructions—"Whenever the Labour Party starts to criticise the Rent Act, do not defend it; merely attack the Labour Party's housing policy instead." Indeed, the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon followed that course. Rather than defend his own Rent Act, he started by trying to attack the Labour Party.
What have we promised the country? At Brighton, on behalf of the party, I promised the following things. It would be interesting to hear if hon. Gentlemen opposite disagree with them. First, I said that if we get back to power there will not be any further evictions. Does the party opposite disagree with that? We said that we shall set up rent tribunals to fix fair rents and that there will be further provision for transferring the tenancy in the event of the death of a near relative, that we will simplify the procedure for getting certificates of disrepair and that we will restore to tribunals the power to fix reasonable rents for all furnished lettings.
The truth now is that the Government in general and the Minister of Housing and Local Government in particular have ceased to regard this as an issue on its merits. It is now regarded as an issue of prestige. However, let me assure the right hon. Gentleman that he would not lose any face or prestige if he decided, even at this late hour, to change his mind. After all, it was not even his Measure; it was the Measure of the Minister of Defence and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), who is not now a member of the Government.
The housing position today is extremely serious, and it will become more serious as the months go by, but we have had nothing from the Government Front Bench today to show that right hon. Gentlemen opposite understand in any way whatsoever the gravity of the situation.

6.1 p.m.

Mr. Robert Jenkins: I think it is generally agreed throughout the House and throughout the country that, in the main, the Rent Act is a bold and constructive Measure to deal with a very difficult problem. Such opposition to Section 11 of the Act which comes from this side of the House is an attempt to persuade the Government to protect a helpless minority of people who may be evicted in October.
The Minister said that afternoon that figures published in the Financial Times were properly based. I wish to go through them for a moment. Last Wednesday, the Financial Times said that in London there were 190,000 people affected by Section 11; that 90,000 had agreed to new


leases, 30,000 had taken up new leases but considered them far too high—that was "taking up a lease at the pistol point"—64,000 remained under notice to quit prior to bargaining or have not heard anything yet, and 8,000 families will be evicted for certain. If we take it at three persons per family, that will mean 24,000 people evicted for certain. I draw attention to the figure of 64,000 who remain under notice to quit prior to bargaining or have not heard anything yet. I think it is fair to assume in respect of the figures given by the Financial Times that a substantial number of the 64,000 will be in the same category as the 8,000 families who will be evicted.
I do not propose to give any instances of difficulties, although I have many hundreds, as other hon. Members have, but it is clearly established, both from the speech of my right hon. Friend last Saturday week and speeches which have been made today, that evictions in large numbers will take place during October, November and December.
The Amendment moved by my right hon. Friend says that the House:
… reaffirms its belief that the Rent Act, 1957, will make a valuable contribution to the nation's housing needs by securing better maintenance of the nation's stock of houses and by bringing into use accommodation which because of rent restriction has remained under-occupied.…
I submit that the Rent Act will be helpful in those respects because of Sections other than Section 11. Those sections will have the effect of increasing rents so that landlords can improve property, the decontrol of all empty property, of which some is being made available every week to help the situation, the decontrol of owner-occupied property, and the reconstruction of large houses and flats. Therefore, in regard to that part of the Amendment, Section 11 does not actually apply.
It appears to me from what has been stated that Section 11 is designed to provide a pool of houses of a rateable value of more than £40 a year in London and more than £30 a year in the provinces into which people can go, and also to increase mobility. Those are very desirable objectives.
The speech of my right hon. Friend ten days ago gave hundreds of thousands of

the 860,000 tenants coming under Section 11 and a smaller number who are faced with eviction great hope that something was to be done. The Minister made it clear that he wanted existing landlords to come to terms on a fair rent, and that he deprecated the action of those landlords who are giving their tenants no option but to buy or get out and those who are asking too high rents or have given notice of eviction. He made it abundantly clear that he opposed the landlords who were going to do that.
The peculiar situation therefore arises that if the Minister's advice were accepted by landlords there could be no evictions in October because all the tenants will have agreed a rent with their landlords. In these circumstances, Section 11 can only be effective to create a pool of empty properties and makes sense only if there are evictions. Therefore, the situation is that the Minister, with the utmost sincerity which we know him to possess, makes a speech giving hope to these people, and yet makes it impossible for the purposes of Section 11 to be carried out, because if his wishes were acceded to by the landlords there would be no pool of houses and no empty properties.
In the past, the Government have undoubtedly done a very great deal for the housing of our people. The phrase "300,000 houses a year" has frequently been heard over the last few years. The Housing Repairs and Rents Act, 1954, was not a huge success, but it achieved some improvements. It was brought in by the Prime Minister. The Landlord and Tenant Act, 1954, did not go as far as the Opposition wished, but it gave some protection to leaseholders. The Requisitioned Houses and Housing (Amendment) Act, 1955, brought in by the present Minister of Defence, gave some justice to the landlord in respect of getting his property back in 1960, while security was given to the tenant in that no tenant could be turned out without the local authority providing other accommodation.
The Rent Act appears to me to be the only Measure brought in by the present Government which has created fear. That is the difficulty that I see about it. It has created fear in the hearts of large numbers of people, and on the present facts it now becomes apparent that those fears will be justified. In the


past, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Housing and Local Government have shown the utmost energy and sympathy in respect of the erection of homes and the building up of family life in the many private and public activities to which they have devoted themselves. I cannot believe that they will allow prestige to prevent them from having second thoughts to avoid cruelty and hardships to thousands of families. I think the facts are proved. There will be a very large number of evictions this year consequent upon this Act.
Time is short. One thinks there are about seven months from now in which something can be done. In fact, there are only four months before the Summer Recess, and the Easter and Whitsun Recesses come out of that time. Every hon. Member knows perfectly well how difficult it is to get new legislation just before or after any Recess.
I am not at this late hour going to make any suggestions as to what can be done, although there are many, but I wonder one thing—whether in the archives of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government there are hidden away somewhere some powers that have not come to light yet and which would give the Minister, without amending the Act, the right to deal with this matter. I do not know whether there are. There may be.
I am not going to make any suggestions. I am interested only in the result. Governments can pass unpopular legislation, they can increase taxation, they can even cut the social services, and be forgiven, but if they take away a man's home unjustly they will never be forgiven.
I think the case is proved that there is going to be substantial hardship, even amounting to cruelty, within the next few months. I know perfectly well that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, when they brought the Bill before the Standing Committee, had no intention that this should be the result: no such intention whatever. They visualised something entirely different. However, in view of a number of things mentioned by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) today, building societies not being able to lend the amount of money required, the credit squeeze, banks not

being able to advance money to buy houses, and the local authorities, which have been told more or less to close down on housing and lending money to people who want to purchase—

Mr. H. Brooke: With respect to my hon. Friend, what he has just said is entirely untrue.

Hon. Members: It is quite right.

Mr. Jenkins: The Minister is absolutely right. He has never told the local authorities to cut down on lending money for the purchase of houses. He has not told them that. What has been suggested is that they should cut their general expenditure. In the process of doing so, one of the easy ways of cutting down expenditure is to not lend money. The Minister is absolutely right.

Mr. Percy Shurmer: Let the Minister answer that one.

Mr. Jenkins: The Minister is absolutely right, and I withdraw what I said about that.
I make one final appeal, knowing, as we all know, of the cruelty and hardship which is taking place now and the fears there are in the minds of scores of thousands of families in this country. I make it in view of what the Minister has said today, that "If we come to the conclusion that something needs to be done, we will do so with the same courage with which we introduced the Bill." I hope that tonight it may be that the fears of the large number of people who have no right to suffer will be alleviated.

6.14 p.m.

Mr. William Hannan: In following the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins), I feel I must extend to him a personal apology. I interjected a question to him earlier, namely, whether he would vote for the Motion. In his speech he has made it quite clear, and I accept at once his sincerity.
This is, as the hon. Member rightly said, one of the most important matters for countless thousands of our people. It affects one of the most important features of their life, their dwellings where they spend their lives with their families. I shall not dwell on the speech of the Minister today, because he let


the House know that he is quite impervious to and oblivious of any human approach to the matter. It is to the Secretary of State for Scotland that I want to address my remarks.
The Secretary of State knows that one of the objections made to the introduction of the Rent Bill was that the Bill was made to cover conditions in Scotland with the same provisions as were provided for England and Wales, although, as he knows, the housing conditions are quite different in Scotland from what they are in England, and although the rating and valuation systems are quite different, the housing conditions prevailing in Scotland being much worse than those in England and Wales. So that United Kingdom Bill imposed on Scotland conditions which are quite wrong, and from which many hundreds of people will suffer now. An opportunity to undo the harm of this inhuman Act is in his hands today.
He predicted that as a result of the Bill there would be no housing shortage in Scotland. He knows that that is quite untrue and that at the moment there is an overall housing shortage as it is. He predicted that landlords would be willing to let houses and that the competition to dispose of the available houses would keep rents down. He knows now that all this is untrue, and if any one experience has taught him so, I hope it was his experience at Kelvingrove on Friday last, as will the Election result which is to come. He will at least be well informed of how the people of Kelvingrove and of all Glasgow and of Scotland feel about the Rent Act.
One result of the Act will be that aged people who are now going to be evicted from their homes will be calling on the local authorities for some protection and some accommodation. There is another Bill affecting local government before the Scottish Standing Committee now, and it will become a very important question whether some provision will be made in that Bill to enable accommodation to be provided for pensioners who will be evicted.
The central feature of this debate is the decontrol of houses in present circumstances, particularly in Scotland. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok (Mr. George) clearly pointed out the difficulty on Second Reading of the Bill. Unfortunately, however, he went into the Lobby

to support the Government on that occasion. He is provided with an opportunity tonight to reinforce his speech on that occasion, and to say whether now, in view of his letters in the Glasgow Herald, and in view of the information now to hand, he still thinks he should support the Government tonight.
In my constituency, there are three old-age pensioners in a four-apartment house which was rented at £50. Because of a change in the rating system, that figure came down to £26 a year for that four-apartment house. Then, because it was valued at over £40 and decontrolled, the rent was increased to £66 a year. The right hon. Gentleman knows that on top of that, because of the rating change, those pensioners, two brothers and a sister, have now to pay £66 rent plus 66 times £1 6s. 8d., making a total of £156. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that that is a reasonable figure? Does he think that three old-age pensioners should suffer anxiety of mind for months because of that situation?
Pensioners and others are now faced with a request from the factor to buy a house or get out. While it is true that in the end the factor or property owner may say that he is willing to negotiate, what does negotiation mean in an atmosphere of that kind? It is sheer blackmail. It is bludgeoning the tenant to pay a higher rent than otherwise he would do, because behind the negotiation is a spirit of vindictiveness and oppression. Tenants who are badly advised, or act on their own, assent to a higher rent because of the pressure of the "buy or quit" notices in the first instance.
Claims were made by the Minister, and no doubt will be made by the Secretary of State for Scotland, about the Government's overall provision of houses. I hope that it will also be added that the percentage of four-apartment houses has fallen as the number of three-apartment houses has gone up. One can always provide more houses in those circumstances. I hope that it will also be made clear that the houses overall are smaller than those which were built in the days of the Labour Government.
There is another feature to which I wish to draw the attention of the Secretary of State for Scotland, and I quote from official facts and figures provided by Glasgow Corporation. In 1956, there


were in Glasgow 2,616 unoccupied tenement houses, of which 1,780 were of one, two and three apartments. In 1957, the number of unoccupied houses in Glasgow increased to 2,939 of all sizes, and of that number 2,057 were of one, two and three apartments. I contend that this makes nonsense of the Government's claim that when houses become unoccupied they will become available for the homeless. These houses are for sale. Tenants are being squeezed out as houses become decontrolled, and others who require houses are held up to ransom when asked to purchase the houses. These are some of the conditions with which we in Scotland have now to contend.
In view of the anxiety felt by so many people, particularly the aged, I hope that the Secretary of State will answer two questions. Is he prepared to give some assurance that some form of protection will be given to tenants? Where houses are falling vacant, will he try to authorise local authorities to consider taking over those houses? The situation is desperate, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. The Government must address themselves to questions such as these in the hope of offering some alleviation and peace of mind to some of our old-age pensioners.

6.26 p.m.

Sir Henry d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: I hope that the hon. Member for Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) will forgive me if I do not follow him in his remarks across the Tweed, except to say that the last point which he made brings me to the point to which I wish to address myself. The number of empty houses in our cities has been a disgrace, and it was to remedy that disgrace that the Rent Act was originally introduced, with the idea of securing a better usage of empty premises.
Hon. Members have spoken throughout the debate as though the number of houses decontrolled by the Rent Act was 800,000 whereas the number really is 5½ million. The houses freed from controlled rent are the 800,000. The remaining 4,650,000 were owner-occupied houses which, before the Act was passed, would have been subject to rent control if they had been let. Therefore, one would have thought that there was a very good chance that, with 5½ million houses potentially

available, accommodation would have been found for all who wanted it.
What has prevented that being the case? It has been the determination of hon. and right hon. Members opposite to make sure that the Act would not work, their determination to frustrate the expressed will of Parliament and their determination to offer the landlord the most appalling penalties if he remains as landlord when, as they hope, they come to power. The penalties which they hold over the landlord have effectively prevented his having any desire to remain a landlord. Just as in the game "Slippery Ann" the object of the players is to get rid of the Queen of Spades, so the landlord's object is to get rid of his house, because he has been terrorised by the threats offered by hon. and right hon. Members opposite.
I have had the pleasure of sitting in the House and in Committee with the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). Knowing his charm of character, I should not be very nervous of suffering injustice at his hands, but the public outside, not having had the advantage of proximity with him, must judge him on his words, which certainly carry a real threat. In the debate on the Address, the hon. and learned Member made one of his all-too-short speeches, which I think lasted one hour and 20 minutes, during which he was tackled by my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Hay) about the inflationary effect of distributing large sums of money to landlords in return for the property which his party proposed to municipalise.
The hon. and learned Member said:
What inflation is there in a local authority taking, on the one hand, the rent of the house and, on the other, paying that or a smaller sum to the landlord … and paying to the landlord the interest on a bond or some form of terminable annuity? … No capital sums will be required."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th November, 1957; Vol. 577, c. 615.]
Let us analyse those words.
Is the hon. and learned Member proposing in those words to hand over a negotiable security? If he is, it is saleable, and, being saleable, must have an inflationary effect. The amount of property to be taken over under this proposed municipalisation is very extensive. It can run into millions of houses. I do not think that it is unfair to ask whether the owners of those houses are to receive


a negotiable security, the effect of which would be highly inflationary, or whether the houses are to be subject to confiscation. I think that is an unavoidable alternative, and I would like a considered opinion from hon. Gentlemen opposite on this point.
The fundamental difference between hon. Gentlemen opposite and my right hon. Friend and my hon. Friends is that they regard housing as a form of social service and we regard housing in the traditional sense—

Miss Margaret Herbison: Profit making.

Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid: I hear the words "profit making". I understand that the party opposite anticipate coming into office. Therefore, the obvious thing for them to do is to come to terms with some of the owners of this despised property. That is only common sense. They should do that, instead of terrorising, scaring and driving those people to make what are in many cases disreputable deals in order to get out of their holdings.
The people of this country have to live in houses whatever Government are in power. Those houses must be maintained. The Rent Act was a genuine attempt to put the housing of this country on the right footing. Even if hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite do not approve of all of it, surely the thing to do is to give the Act a chance to work. When it comes to their turn for office, if it does come, they can remedy the abuses to which they object.
When hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite took over the hospital service they did not treat the people who ran the hospitals as if they were behaving disgracefully. They accepted the fact that it was necessary to make use of their services. The same is true here. It is straightforward common sense, if they are confident of being returned and of having to deal with this problem, not to terrorise, frighten and blackguard the people who now own the property. If they do that they will find themselves faced with a much more serious problem than has ever confronted us.
I consider that this Act has been a genuine attempt to sort out the appalling difficulties created by forty years of various kinds of rent control. I take encouragement from the fact that the

Government, whilst sticking to their guns, are prepared to do something to help to remedy the obvious injustices which may occur.

6.33 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Fraser: It was obvious from the speech to which we have just listened that the hon. Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) would much rather discuss the Labour Party's policy document "Homes for the Future" than the consequences of the Rent Act. If he should have the good fortune to return from the wreckage of the next General Election, the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to participate in our debates here when we give legislative effect to that document. In the meantime we have a duty to the people of this country, to discuss the Motion before us on the consequences of the Rent Act, 1957.
It is also interesting to note that, apart from the hon. Gentleman himself, everyone who has addressed the House today, including the Minister, seemed to support our Motion. What does it say? It says "That this House deplores the threats of eviction. …" Does not the Minister deplore the threats of eviction? I thought he did. I thought that was why he made the speech he did in his constituency the other day. I thought he wanted to repeat that speech in Holborn last week when he was howled down. I thought that everyone who has spoken today, except the last speaker, had deplored the threats of eviction.
I thought that hon. Members on both sides of the House deplored the oppressive agreements that are being made. Indeed some of the most eloquent pleas came from the Government benches. It is true that some hon. Gentlemen opposite said there were not as many as we have suggested, but nevertheless they deplored them where they existed. I also thought that hon. Gentlemen opposite deplored the serious hardships imposed upon tenants as a result of the Act. I thought they merely argued that we had grossly exaggerated the position, but that in their speeches today, inasmuch as serious hardship obtained, they deplored this consequence of the Act.
Our Motion then calls upon
Her Majesty's Government to take immediate steps to remedy these grievances.


If grievances do not exist, no steps would be needed to deal with them.
So there is no doubt that in the course of this debate every hon. and right hon. Gentleman opposite who has participated, including the Minister, has supported our Motion. It was clear, of course, that the Minister preferred to discuss matters other than those arising on the Motion, and that is why the Amendment was put down, so that he could tell us once again that the Conservative Party built more houses in the six years during which it has been responsible than we built during the six years of the Labour Government. The right hon. Gentleman completely ignored all the war damage repairs that were carried out. He ignored the fact that the record of the Labour Government in building houses after the war exceeded that of any other country involved in it. If I may say so, the Minister deliberately misled the House.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that the Rent Act had not been introduced too soon but too late. If that is so, why did the Conservative Central Office say in the 1955 General Election that the Conservative Party had no intention of imposing any general increase in rents? Why did it issue in its notes the intimation to all speakers and candidates that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) was misleading when he said that if the Tories were returned to power there would be a general increase in rents? Or does the Minister agree with a former Tory Prime Minister that one can stick anything into an election manifesto? He was the one who today said that the Socialists never keep election promises, but his great fear is that we will keep our election promises, and of course we will.
The Minister said that notices to quit had been issued by owners not because they wanted to terminate tenancies but as a prelude to negotiating new ones. I doubt that. I do not know the position in England and Wales as well as I know it in Scotland, but this is not true of Scotland.

Mr. James Callaghan: Or of Wales.

Mr. Fraser: The Secretary of State for Scotland will agree that notices to quit

are not issued in Scotland as a prelude to negotiating new tenancies. He will know well that in Scotland this practice has been increasing every year since the end of the war. When houses previously tenant-occupied have become vacant they have not been relet, but have been offered for sale. The Secretary of State for Scotland knows well that when the Labour Government left office in 1951 there was a Bill on the stocks on that very issue. He also knows that my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) introduced the Bill in 1952 and that the Government blocked it. So this is not a new problem arising since the publication of the Labour Party's policy document "Homes for the Future". This has been going on for many years in Scotland, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) said, at this time there are 3,000 houses empty in Glasgow with sale notices stuck on them.
I would like my hon. Friends from English constituencies to believe me when I say that this is a more widespread problem in Scotland than in England. I say that for the following reason. I believe that in England people do not sell individual flats in a block, but that the property has to be sold from the ground upwards. In Scotland we can sell any individual flat or tenement, as it is called, in a huge block of tenements. Sometimes there are 40 or 60 of these accommodation units which can be sold individually. So this practice has been going on for a number of years now, and it is the worst possible kind of property ownership there can be with this divided responsibility for one property block. It is going on now and the Government have encouraged this practice by the introduction of the Rent Act, because so many more houses are going out of control and the owners have been given the opportunity of cashing in.
The Government have said that decontrol is necessary because it will lead to better use being made of bigger houses. Again, this is not true of Scotland. It is not true of Glasgow. The people who are being turfed out of the over-£40 houses in Glasgow are not the one and two persons who are living in such houses, but the families, because it is they who are least able to pay the higher rent.
On Friday night, at Kelvingrove, the Secretary of State was asked a question by a widow with four children who was being turfed out of her house because she was not able to pay the new rent that the landlord wanted. She is being prised out of her house, which has been decontrolled. Who is going into it? Is it somebody with more than four children? Of course not. It is somebody with more money than the widow with the four children, and the right hon. Gentleman knows this as well as any other hon. Member.
The Minister expressed his sympathy for the old people. He gave the impression that his heart was bleeding for the old people who were to be turned out of the tenancies that they have occupied for fifteen or twenty or even thirty years. He made some vague offer of doing something to help them if they are to be evicted in October of this year. His hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins) was, however, right to say that if the Minister is to do anything legislatively, he must do it soon. It was at this time last year that he was in great panic to get the Rent Bill on the Statute Book to get decontrol working. It was necessary to get the Bill on the Statute Book at an early date to give assurance to the landlords. Therefore, he guillotined the whole procedure. Now, at the same time this year, he has not even started his legislative process to give protection to the tenants who are threatened with eviction. He gives them his promise that he will do something for them, but he tells us that this is not the time for him to amplify that promise.
There is no doubt that many people who occupy houses which have been decontrolled are suffering great mental anguish and are being made very ill by the threat of being turned out of their homes—either the straight notice to quit, or the notice to buy or quit when they certainly do not have the money to buy. Even in the odd case when they are being asked to negotiate a new rent, they are asked a rent which is so far beyond their means that they know they will never be able to pay it, and there is nowhere else for them to go. The Secretary of State knows that.
A few years ago, I remember the House being very concerned about a certain Mr. Pilgrim. Hon. Members will

remember the fate of Mr. Pilgrim, because the local council was taking his house. How many Mr. Pilgrims have there to be under the Rent Act before the Secretary of State and the Minister will take action? In fact, I wonder how many Mr. Pilgrims there have been already. I wonder how many of those gassing tragedies have not, in fact, been Mr. Pilgrims. [HoN. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes, of course. It is tragic when the council takes a piece of land—

Captain F. V. Corfield: Can the hon. Member explain, then, why his party voted against the Bill that was designed to put right the Pilgrim type of case?

Mr. Fraser: The hon. and gallant Member is like many of his hon. Friends. I do not wish to discuss other legislation just now. I thought we were having a brief half-day debate on the Rent Act. It is the Rent Act Mr. Pilgrims about whom I am concerned, but, apparently, the supporters of the Government are quite unconcerned about the tenants of the houses which are being decontrolled.
Let me mention one part of the country which has not so far been mentioned. My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) has put down Questions to the Secretary of State about the problem of Prinlaws, in Fife, a village of 150 houses which has been bought by a London property company, not for the benefit of the inhabitants of the village, but admittedly with a view to making profit on the investment.
Those houses, as the Secretary of State will know, are now having their rents increased by from 500 to 800 per cent. They are houses which are over 100 years old, are very damp and in a bad state of repair and they are being offered to the tenants at £1,750. Tenants of houses with no modern conveniences and no sanitary arrangements are now being asked to pay rent at double the council rents in the area. My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West, who writes from his sick bed, wrote thus to me:
Old Shylock was a benevolent philanthropist compared to the sharks who are now trying to get their teeth into the humble and honest folk of Prinlaws.
I hope that the Secretary of State will give an undertaking that the tragedy that is overhanging so many of the people in Scotland, whom he claims to be looking


after down here, will be averted by action. He knows full well that any justification that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) offered for the Rent Bill in its application in England had no foundation in Scotland. His predecessor said eighteen months ago that he would not be such a fool as to prophesy when there would be enough houses to satisfy the demand in Scotland. In our great cities—in Glasgow, for example—we still have over 100,000 people on the waiting list for houses. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give some comfort to them in his reply to the debate this evening.

6.47 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John Maclay): In the relatively short time that remains, I want to deal at once with one or two points which have been raised in case I miss them later. Concerning Prinlaws, for example, to which the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) referred, the hon. Member may know that the houses in question have nothing to do with the Act. They are not houses which were decontrolled by reason of rateable value in excess of £40. Whether the Rent Acts apply is a matter which may need to be decided in the courts. I have a Question on the matter tomorrow, when I shall be dealing with it. We can, therefore, get Prinlaws out of the argument. It is a separate matter.
I will deal also with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. Robert Jenkins). My right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government has asked me to make perfectly clear the position about loans for house purchase by local authorities in England and Wales. Far from there being any Government restriction on the policy of local authorities in this respect, my right hon. Friend sent a circular to local authorities in November reminding them afresh of their powers to lend money to would-be house purchasers. [HON. MEMBERS: "At what interest?"] My right hon. Friend is desirous of encouraging and not restricting this method. To help local authorities, he has told them that there can be varying rates of interest. I have not dealt with the point in a circular in Scotland, but local authorities have been told that there is scope for varying rates of interest. Of course, I cannot be precise on the

rates of interest, but there is scope for varying rates of interest. Far from discouraging this kind of operation, my right hon. Friend and I are prepared to encourage it.
The hon. Member for Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) asked two questions. One was whether local authorities had power to buy houses and whether I would help them. What was in the hon. Member's mind was whether local authorities had power to buy houses in case of need. The position is that local authorities have power to buy either by agreement or by compulsion. That is the position.

Mrs. Jean Mann: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that authorities in Scotland have already tried to operate the Act and have found that the arbiter has fixed a price which has been that of a scarcity value?

Mr. Maclay: That is not relevant to what I was saying.
The hon. Member for Hamilton said that my right hon. Friend had referred to the number of houses which the present Government had built compared with those built by the Labour Government, and he said that I would probably do the same. I shall do so, because the hon. Member for Hamilton had his facts wrong. I know that immediately after the war there was a job of war damage to be done, but that consideration did not apply in Scotland to anything like the degree to which it applied in England. Of course, we have had to build some temporary houses, but can the hon. Member for Hamilton deny that in 1950–51, five years after the war, it was a deliberate decision of the Labour Government to keep the rate of building down to 200,000 houses a year?

Mr. A. Woodburn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that when the Labour Government were in office there was never an occasion when the building trade in Scotland was not asked to build all the houses it could, and that in fact it complained that it was being asked to build too many?

Mr. Maclay: How is that borne out by the figures? The figures are worth considering. They show that in 1950 the number of houses built in Scotland was


25,800; in 1951, 22,900; in 1952, 30,900; and in 1953, 39,000.
My point is quite simple and straightforward. It is that the hon. Member for Hamilton should know what went on inside his own party, and that it was his party's decision on priorities in 1950, five years after the end of the war, to keep down to a relatively low level of building. Our decision on priorities was that housing was one of the greatest human problems. That was why we went for 300,000 houses and not only achieved that figure but did a great deal better. I wanted to make those issues clear for the record.
Let us consider one or two other aspects of the Scottish situation. I agree that the position in Scotland is different from that in England, but so are our provisions of the Rent Act, as the hon. Member for Hamilton knows. The number of houses in Scotland affected is about one in twelve of all controlled houses. It was inevitable, after so many years of control, that an even limited measure of decontrol would give rise to some difficulty. I have never disguised that in any statement which I have made, in the House or outside.
I repeat what my right hon. Friend said earlier, that the Government believe that it is right to make a beginning in Scotland, as well as in England and Wales, in breaking away from the totally artificial situation which complete rent control involves. There is no other way in which we can make the best use of our available supply of houses and flats. If hon. Members have any doubt about that, they should consider what happened in the years after the war in other countries which had a very tight form of rent control, with completely disastrous results for their building programmes and for the people who had to live in those circumstances. We were bound to take action, and I am glad that we did.
Another important topic during the debate was that of the number of houses in Scotland coming into the market to be let. In considering this matter, I ask hon. Members to keep in mind the effect of Section 11 (2) of the Rent Act, under which a new tenancy of a house when the house falls vacant is free from control under the Rent Acts. It is our view that this subsection, taken in conjunction with the decontrol provisions in Section 11 (1),

is a valuable means of increasing the size of the letting pool.
I will give the House some figures about what is happening. There is very good reason to think that a considerable number of houses which the owners have been holding for sale were relet following the coming into operation of the Rent Act on 6th July last. Since last week, I have had some more figures which illustrate what has been happening. These figures are from a sample taken from a number of factors in Glasgow. They do not cover the whole of Glasgow, but a sample is the only way in which these figures can be obtained. Between 6th July, 1957, and December, 1957, the number of houses empty on 6th July was 736 and between then and December no fewer than 2,574 were vacated, a total of 3,310; of those, no fewer than 3,267 were relet, as many as 98 per cent. of the houses becoming vacant. That is not a "fixed" sample—hon. Members can take a sample anywhere they like—and it does not bear out the allegations of hon. Members opposite, nor the implications of the Questions which I get from week to week.
There has been much concern about the position of elderly people, and I think that I ought to repeat what my right hon. Friend said this afternoon, because it is very important to show what we feel about the matter. My right hon. Friend said:
I said the other day that I was watching the position closely. I was thinking not only of the small minority of unhelpful landlords, but also of elderly tenants who might find it more difficult than younger people to help themselves.
He went on:
The Government have no intention of repealing the Rent Act, nor any part of it. I am making no forecast, but if we should conclude that any further steps are necessary to secure that the objects of the Act are accomplished in a fair and reasonable way, we shall take them with the same courage as we showed when we introduced the Rent Bill for the benefit of the nation as a whole.
There has not yet been time to know how much effect the circular to local authorities about the position of elderly people has had. We cannot tell precisely how many people will need help of the kind which the circular suggests, but I reinforce what my right hon. Friend has said.
I turn finally to the Motion and to the Amendment. The hon. Member for


Hamilton made much play with the fact that nobody had disagreed with the terms of the Opposition's Motion. My right hon. Friend pointed out very clearly, and I repeat, that the Motion gives a completely unbalanced view of the effects of the Rent Act as a whole. The Amendment, which I strongly commend to the House, puts the matter in its proper perspective. The Rent Act had several functions—to improve the condition of houses and to make more houses avail-

able for letting—and many of those conditions have been fulfilled. I sincerely hope that the House will be ready to support the Amendment. How can hon. Members possibly fail to agree that Her Majesty's Government have taken all the measures necessary to achieve their ends in a fair and reasonable manner?

Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 246, Noes 304.

Division No. 52.]
AYES
[7.0 p.m.


Ainsley, J. W.
Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
Lindgren, G. S.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Lipton, Marcus


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Logan, D. G.


Anderson, Frank
Fernyhough, E.
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson


Awbery, S. S.
Finch, H. J.
McCann, J.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Fletcher, Eric
MacColl, J. E.


Baird, J.
Foot, D. M.
MacDermot, Niall


Balfour, A.
Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
McGhee, H. G.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
McGovern, J.


Bence, C. R. (Dunbarton, E.)
George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Car'then)
McKay, John (Wallsend)


Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S[...].E.)
Gibson, C. W.
McLeavy, Frank


Benson, Sir George
Gooch, E. G.
MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)


Beswick, Frank
Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Greenwood, Anthony
Mahon, Simon


Blackburn, F.
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Mainwaring, W. H.


Blenkinsop, A.
Grey, C. F.
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)


Blyton, W. R.
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfd, E.)


Boardman, H.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Mann, Mrs. Jean


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Mason, Roy


Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)
Hale, Leslie
Mayhew, C. P.


Bowles, F. G.
Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Mellish, R. J.


Boyd, T. C.
Hannan, W.
Messer, Sir F.


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)
Mitchison, G. R.


Brockway, A. F.
Hastings, S.
Monslow, W.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Hayman, F. H.
Moody, A. S.


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Healey, Denis
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)


Burke, W. A.
Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)
Morrison, Rt. Hn. Herbert (Lewis'm,S.)


Burton, Miss F. E.
Herbison, Miss M.
Mort, D. L.


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Hewitson, Capt. M.
Moss, R.


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Hobson, C. R. (Keighley)
Moyle, A.


Callaghan, L. J.
Holman, P.
Mulley, F. W.


Carmichael, J.
Holmes, Horace
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Houghton, Douglas
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)


Champion, A. J.
Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. (Derby, S.)


Chapman, W. D.
Howell, Denis (All Saints)
O'Brien, Sir Thomas


Chetwynd, G. R.
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Oliver, G. H.


Coldrick, W.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Oram, A. E.


Collins,V. J. (Shoreditch &amp; Finsbury)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Oswald, T.


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Hunter, A. E.
Owen, W. J.


Cove, W. G.
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Padley, W. E.



Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Paget, R. T.


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)


Cronin, J. D.
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Palmer, A. M. F.


Crossman, R. H. S.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)


Cullen, Mrs. A.
Janner, B.
Pargiter, G. A.


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Parker, J.


Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Jeger, George (Goole)
Parkin, B. T.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Jeger, Mrs. Lena (Holbn &amp; St. Pncs,S.)
Paton, John


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)
Pearson, A.


Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Johnson, James (Rugby)
Peart, T. F.


Deer, G.
Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech (Wakefield)
Pentland, N.


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Jones, David (The Hartlepools)
Plummer, Sir Leslie


Diamond, John
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Prentice, R. E.


Dodds, N. N.
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)


Donnelly, D. L.
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)
Kenyon, C.
Probert, A. R.


Dye, S.
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Proctor, W. T.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
King, Dr. H. M.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Edelman, M.
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Randall, H. E.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. John (Brighouse)
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Rankin, John




Redhead, E. C.
Sparks, J. A.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Reeves, J.
Steele, T.
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Reid, William
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)
West, D. G.


Rhodes, H.
Stonehouse, John
Wheeldon, W. E.


Robens, Rt. Hon. A.
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent,C.)
Wigg, George


Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.
Wilcock, Group Captain C. A. B.


Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)
Swingler, S. T.
Wilkins, W. A.


Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Sylvester, C. O.
Willey, Frederick


Ross, William
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)
Williams, David (Neath)


Royle, C.
Taylor, John (West Lothian)
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)


Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Shurmer, P. L. E.
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Silverman, Julius (Aston)
Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)
Timmons, J.
Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)


Simmons, C. J. (Brlerley Hill)
Tomney, F.
Winterbottom, Richard


Skeffington, A. M.
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)
Usborne, H. C.
Woof, R. E.


Slater, J. (Sedgefield)
Viant, S. P.
Yates, V. (Ladywood)


Snow, J. W.
Warbey, W. N.
Zilliacus, K.


Sorensen, R. W.
Watkins, T. E.



Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank
Weitzman, D.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Popplewell and Mr. Short.




NOES


Agnew, Sir Peter
Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)


Aitken, W. T.
Cunningham, Knox
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Currie, G. B. H.
Harvie-Watt, Sir George


Alport, C. J. M.
Dance, J. C. G.
Hay, John


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Davidson, Viscountess
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel


Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)
D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Henderson, John (Cathcart)


Anstruther-Gray, Major Sir William
Deedes, W. F.
Henderson-Stewart, Sir James


Arbuthnot, John
Digby, Simon Wingfield
Hesketh, R. F.


Ashton, H.
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.


Astor, Hon. J. J.
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)


Atkins, H. E.
Doughty, C. J. A.
Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
du Cann, E. D. L.
Hill, John (S. Norfolk)


Baldwin, A. E.
Dugdale, Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)
Hirst, Geoffrey


Balniel, Lord
Dunoan, Sir James
Hobson,John(Warwick &amp; Leam'gt'n)


Barber, Anthony
Duthie, W. S.
Holland-Martin, C. J.


Barlow, Sir John
Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David
Hope, Lord John


Barter, John
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)
Hornby, R. P.


Baxter, Sir Beverley
Elliott,R.W.(Ne'castle upon Tyne,N.)
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.


Beamish, Col. Tufton
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Horobin, Sir Ian


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E)
Errington, Sir Eric
Horsbrugh, Rt, Hon. Dame Florence


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Erroll, F. J.
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Farey-Jones, F. W.
Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)


Bennett, Dr. Reginald
Fell, A.
Howard, John (Test)


Bevins, J. R, (Toxteth)
Fisher, Nigel
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.


Bidgood, J. C.
Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Hughes-Young, M. H. C.


Biggs-Davison, J. A.
Forrest, G.
Hulbert, Sir Norman


Bingham, R. M.
Foster, John
Hurd, A. R.


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Hutchison, Michael Clark (E'b'gh,S.)


Bishop, F. P.
Fraser, Sir Ian (M'ombe &amp; Lonsdale)
Hutchison Sir Ian Clark (E'b'gh, W.)


Black, C. W.
Freeth, Denzil
Hutchison, Sir James (Scotstoun)


Body, R. F.
Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
Hylton-Foster, Rt, Hon. Sir Harry


Boothby, Sir Robert
Gammans, Lady
Iremonger, T. L.


Bossom, Sir Alfred
Garner-Evans, E. H.
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.
George, J. C. (Pollok)
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)


Boyle, Sir Edward
Gibson-Watt, D.
Jennings, Sir Roland (Hallam)


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Glover, D.
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Glyn, Col. Richard H.
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)


Brooman-White, R. C.
Godber, J. B.
Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)


Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)
Gomme-Duncan, Col. Sir Alan
Jones, Rt. Hon. Aubrey (Hall Green)


Bryan, P.
Goodhart, Philip
Joseph, Sir Keith


Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Gough, C. F. H.
Joynson-Hicks, Hon. Sir Lancelot


Butcher, Sir Herbert
Gower, H. R.
Kaberry, D.


Butler, Rt. Hn. R.A. (Saffron Walden)
Graham, Sir Fergus
Keegan, D.


Campbell, Sir David
Grant, W. (Woodside)
Kerby, Capt. H. B


Carr, Robert
Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr.R. (Nantwich)
Kerr, Sir Hamilton


Cary, Sir Robert
Green, A.
Kershaw, J. A.


Channon, Sir Henry
Gresham Cooke, R.
Kimball, M.


Chichester-Clark, R.
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Kirk, P. M.


Clarke, Brig, Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Lagden, G. W.


Cole, Norman
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Lambton, Viscount


Conant, Maj. Sir Roger
Gurden, Harold
Lancaster, Col. C. G.


Cooke, Robert
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Langford-Holt, J. A.


Cooper, A. E.
Hare, Rt. Hon. J. H.
Leather, E. H. C.


Cooper-Key, E. M.
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)
Leavey, J. A.


Corfield, Capt. F. V.
Harris, Reader (Heston)
Leburn, W. G.


Craddook, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)


Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)
Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)







Linstead, Sir H. N.
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. D.
Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)


Llewellyn, D. T.
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard


Lloyd, Rt. Hon. G. (Sutton Coldfield)
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian(Hendon, N.)
Stevens, Geoffrey


Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
Osborne, C.
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)


Longden, Gilbert
Page, R. G.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm


Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby
Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)
Storey, S.


Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Partridge, E.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Lucas, P. B. (Brentford &amp; Chiswick)
Peel, W. J.
Studholme, Sir Henry


Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Peyton, J. W. W.
Summers, Sir Spencer


McAdden, S. J.
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)


Macdonald, Sir Peter
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


McKibbin, Alan
Pitman, I. J.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Pitt, Miss E. M.
Teeling, W.


Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Lancaster)
Pott, H. P.
Temple, John M.


Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Powell, J. Enoch
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


MacLeod, John (Ross &amp; Cromarty)
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Macmillan, Rt.Hn.Harold(Bromley)
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr.R.(Croydon, S.)


Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Profumo, J. D.
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.


Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Ramsden, J. E.
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Maddan, Martin
Rawlinson, Peter
Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)


Maitland, Cdr. J. F. W. (Horncastle)
Redmayne, M.
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Markham, Major Sir Frank
Remnant, Hon. P.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Marples, Rt. Hon. A. E.
Renton, D. L. M.
Vane, W. M. F.


Marshall, Douglas
Ridsdale, J. E.
Vickers, Miss Joan


Mathew, R.
Rippon, A. G. F.
Vosper, Rt. Hon. D. F.


Maude, Angus
Robertson, Sir David
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)


Mawby, R. L.
Robson Brown, Sir William
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Derek


Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Wall, Patrick


Medlicott, Sir Frank
Roper, Sir Harold
Ward, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Worcester)


Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)


Molson, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Moore, Sir Thomas
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.
Webbe, Sir H.


Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Sharples, R. C.
Whitelaw, W. S. I.


Nabarro, G. D. N.
Shepherd, William
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Neave, Airey
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Nicholls, Harmar
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)
Wills, G. (Bridgwater)


Nicholson, Sir Godfrey (Farnham)
Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Nicolson, N.(B'n'm'th, E. &amp; Chr'ch)
Soames, Christopher
Wood, Hon. R.


Noble, Comdr. Rt. Hon. Allan
Spearman, Sir Alexander
Woollam, John Victor


Nugent, G. R. H.
Speir, R. M.



O'Neill, Hn. Phelim(Co. Antrim, N.)
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeen, W.)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Heath and Mr. Oakshott.

Question put, That the proposed words be there added:—

The House divided: Ayes 307, Noes 246.

Division No. 53.]
AYES
[7.10 p.m.


Agnew, Sir Peter
Bossom, Sir Alfred
D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry


Aitken, W. T.
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. J. A.
Deedes, W. F.


Allan, R.A. (Paddington, S.)
Boyle, Sir Edward
Digby, Simon Wingfield


Alport, C. J. M.
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Dodds-Parker, A. D.


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.


Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Brooman-White, R. C.
Doughty, C. J. A.


Anstruther-Gray, Major Sir William
Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)
du Cann, E. D. L.


Arbuthnot, John
Bryan, P.
Dugdale Rt. Hn. Sir T. (Richmond)


Ashton, H.
Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Duncan, Capt. J. A. L.


Astor, Hon. J. J.
Butcher, Sir Herbert
Duthie, W. S.


Atkins, H. E.
Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A.(Saffron Walden)
Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Campbell, Sir David
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)


Baldwin, A. E.
Carr, Robert
Elliott,R.W.(NewcastleuponTyne,N.)


Balniel, Lord
Cary, Sir Robert
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn


Barber, Anthony
Channon, Sir Henry
Errington, Sir Eric


Barlow, Sir John
Chichester-Clark, R.
Erroll, F. J.


Barter, John
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)
Farey-Jones F. W.


Baxter, Sir Beverley
Cole, Norman
Fell, A.


Beamish, Col. Tufton
Conant, Maj. Sir Roger
Fisher, Nigel


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Cooke, Robert
Fletcher-Cooke, C.


Bell, Ronald (Bucks, S.)
Cooper, A. E.
Forrest, G.


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Cooper-Key, E. M.
Foster, John


Bennett, Dr. Reginald
Cordeaux, Lt. Col. J. K.
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
Corfield, Capt. F. V.
Fraser, Sir Ian (M'cmbe &amp; Lonsdale)


Bidgood, J. C.
Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Freeth, Denzil


Biggs-Davison, J. A.
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.


Bingham, R. M.
Crowder, Sir John (Finchley)
Gammans, Lady


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Crowder, Petre (Ruislip—Northwood)
Garner-Evans, E. H.


Bishop, F. P.
Cunningham, Knox
George, J. C. (Pollok)


Black, C. W.
Currie, G. B. H.
Gibson-Watt, D.


Body, R. F.
Dance, J. C. G.
Glover, D.


Boothby, Sir Robert
Davidson, Viscountess
Glyn, Col. R.




Godber, J. B.
Lambton, Viscount
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O. L.


Gomme-Duncan, Col. Sir Alan
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Profumo, J. D.


Goodhart, Philip
Langford-Holt, J. A.
Ramsden, J. E.


Gough, C. F. H.
Leather, E. H. C.
Rawlinson, Peter


Gower, H. R.
Leavey, J. A.
Redmayne, M.


Graham, Sir Fergus
Leburn, W. G.
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Grant, W. (Woodside)
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Remnant, Hon. P.


Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R. (Nantwich)
Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)
Renton, D. L. M.


Green, A.
Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)
Ridsdale, J. E.


Gresham Cooke, R.
Linstead, Sir H. N.
Rippon, A. G. F.


Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Llewellyn, D. T.
Robertson, Sir David


Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Lloyd,Rt.Hon.G.(Sutton Coldfield)
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)


Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Robson Brown, Sir William


Gurden, Harold
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Longden, Gilbert
Roper, Sir Harold


Hare, Rt. Hon. J. H.
Low, Rt. Hon. A. R. W.
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)
Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Lucas,P.B.(Brentford &amp; Chiswick)
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.


Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Sharples, R. C.


Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
McAdden, S. J.
Shepherd, William


Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesfd)
Macdonald, Sir Peter
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)


Harvey, Ian (Harrow, E.)
McKibbin, A. J.
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)


Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Smyth, Brig, sir John (Norwood)


Harvie-Watt, Sir George
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Lancaster)
Soames, Christopher


Hay, John
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
MacLeod, John (Ross &amp; Cromarty)
Speir, R. M.


Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Macmillan,Rt.Hn.Harold(Bromley)
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeen, W.)


Henderson-Stewart, Sir James
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Spens, Rt. Hn. Sir P. (Kens'gt'n, S.)


Hesketh, R. F.
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard


Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.
Maddan, Martin
Stevens, Geoffrey


Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)
Maitland,Cdr.J.F.W.(Horncastle)
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)


Hill, Mrs. E. (Wythenshawe)
Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich. W.)


Hill, John (S. Norfolk)
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm


Hirst, Geoffrey
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Storey, S.


Hobson, John(Warwick &amp; Leam'gt'n)
Marples, Rt. Hon. A. E.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)


Holland-Martin, C. J.
Marshall, Douglas
Studholme, Sir Henry


Hope, Lord John
Mathew, R.
Summers, Sir Spencer


Hornby, R. P.
Maude, Angus
Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)


Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.
Taylor, Sir Charles (Easthourne)


Horobin, Sir Ian
Mawby, R. L.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)


Horsbrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence
Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.
Teeling, W.


Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Medlicott, Sir Frank
Temple, John M.


Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)
Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Howard, John (Test)
Molson, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.
Moore, Sir Thomas
Thompson, Lt.-Cdr.R.(Croydon, S.)


Hughes-Young, M. H. C.
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. P.


Hulbert, Sir Norman
Nabarro, G. D. N.
Thorn[...]on-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Hurd, A. R.
Neave, Airey
Tiley, A. (Bradford, W.)


Hutchison,SirIanClark(E'b'gh, W.)
Nicholls, Harmar
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Hutchison, Sir James (Scotstoun)
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey (Farnham)
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Hutchison,MichaelClark(E'b'gh, S.)
Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. &amp; Chr'ch)
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry
Noble, Comdr. Rt. Hon. Allan
Vane, W. M. F.


Iremonger, T. L.
Nugent, G. R. H.
Vickers, Miss Joan


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)
Vosper, Rt. Hon. D. F.


Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. D.
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)


Jennings, Sir Roland (Hallam)
Orr-Ewing, Charles Ian (Hendon, N.)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Derek


Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian (Weston-S-Mare)
Wall, Patrick


Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Osborne, C.
Ward, Rt. Hon. G. R. (Worcester)


Johnson, Howard (Kemptown)
Page, R. G.
Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)


Jones, Rt. Hon. Aubrey (Hall Green)
Pannell, N. A. (Kirkdale)
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Joseph, Sir Keith
Partridge, E.
Webbe, Sir H.


Joynson-Hicks, Hon. Sir Lancelot
Peel, W. J.
Whitelaw, W. S. I.


Kaberry, D.
Peyton, J. W. W.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Keegan, D.
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Kerby, Capt. H. B.
Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Wills, G. (Bridgwater)


Kerr, Sir Hamilton
Pitman, I. J.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Kershaw, J. A.
Pitt, Miss E. M.
Wood, Hon. R.


Kimball, M.
Pott, H. P.
Woollam, John Victor


Kirk, P. M.
Powell, J. Enoch



Lagden, G. W.
Price, David (Eastleigh)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:




Mr. Heath and Mr. Oakshott.




NOES


Ainsley, J. W.
Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)
Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S.W.)


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Benn, Hn. Wedgwood (Bristol, S.E.)
Bowles, F. G.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Benson, Sir George
Boyd, T. C.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Beswick, Frank
Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth


Anderson, Frank
Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Brockway, A. F.


Awbery, S. S.
Blackburn, F.
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)


Bacon, Miss Alice
Blenkinsop, A.
Brown, Thomas (Ince)


Baird, J.
Blyton, W. R.
Burke, W. A.


Balfour, A.
Boardman, H.
Burton, Miss F. E.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)







Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Callaghan, L. J.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Probert, A. R.


Carmichael, J.
Janner, B.
Proctor, W. T.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Champion, A. J.
Jeger, George (Goole)
Randall, H. E.


Chapman, W. D.
Jeger,Mrs.Lena(Holborn&amp;St.Pncs,S.)
Rankin, John


Chetwynd, G. R.
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)
Redhead, E. C.


Coldrick, W.
Johnson, James (Rugby)
Reeves, J.


Collins, V. J. (Shoreditch &amp; Finsbury)
Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech (Wakefield)
Reed, William


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jones, David (The Hartlepools)
Rhodes, H.


Cove, W. G.
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Cronin, J. D.
Jones, T. w. (Merioneth)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Crossman, R. H. S.
Kenyon, C.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Cullen, Mrs. A.
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
King, Dr. H. M.
Ross, William


Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Royle, C.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)
Shurmer, P. L. E.


Davies, Stephen (Merthyr)
Lindgren, G. S.
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Deer, G.
Lipton, Marcus
Sllverman, Sydney (Nelson)


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Logan, D. G.
Simmons, C. J. (Brierley Hill)


Diamond, John
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Skeffington, A. M.


Dodds, N. N.
McCann, J.
Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)


Donnelly, D. L.
MacColl, J. E.
Slater, J. (Sedgefield)


Dugdale Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)
MacDermot, Niall
Snow, J. W.


Dye, S.
McGhee, H. G.
Sorensen, R. W.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. c.
McGovern, J.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Edelman, M.
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Sparks, J. A.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. (Brighouse)
McLeavy, Frank
Steele, T.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
MacMillan, M. K. (Western Isles)
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Stonehouse, John


Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)
Mahon, Simon
Strachey, Rt. Hon. J.


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
Mainwaring, W. H.
Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent,C.)


Fernyhough, E.
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.


Finch, H. J.
Mallalieu, J.P.W.(Huddersfd.E.)
Swingler, S. T.


Fletcher, Eric
Mann, Mrs, Jean.
Sylvester, G. O.


Foot, D. M.
Mason, Roy
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Mayhew, C. P.
Taylor, John (West Lothian)


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Mellish, R. J.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Car'then)
Messer, Sir F.
Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)


Gibson, C. W.
Mitchison, G. R.
Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)


Gooch, E. G.
Monslow, W,
Timmons, J.


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Moody, A. S.
Tomney, F.


Greenwood, Anthony
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)
Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn


Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Morrison, Rt. Hn. Herbert (Lewis'm,S.)
Usborne, H. C.


Grey, C. F.
Mort, D. L.
Viant, S. P.


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Moss, R.
Warbey, W. N.


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Moyle, A.
Watkins, T. E.


Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Mulley, F. W.
Weitzman, D.


Hale, Leslie
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Hannan, W.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. (Derby, S.)
West, D. G.


Harrison, J. (Nottingham, N.)
O'Brien, Sir Thomas
Wheeldon, W. E.


Hastings, S.
Oliver, G. H.
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)


Hayman, F. H.
Oram, A. E.
Wigg, George


Healey, Denis
Oswald, T.
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.


Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)
Owen, W. J.
Wilkins, W. A.


Herbison, Miss M.
Padley, W. E,
Willey, Frederick


Hewitson, Capt. M.
Paget, R. T.
Williams, David (Neath)


Hobson, C. R. (Keighley)
Paling, Rt. Hon. W. (Dearne Valley)
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)


Holman, P.
Palmer, A. M. F.
Williams, Ronald (Wigan)


Holmes, Horace
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Houghton, Douglas
Pargiter, G. A.
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)
Parker, J.
Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)


Howell, Denis (All Saints)
Parkin, B. T.
Winterbottom, Richard


Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Paton, John
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Pearson, A.
Woof, R. E.


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Peart, T. F.
Yates, V. (Ladywood)


Hunter, A. E.
Pentland, N.
Zilliacus, K.


Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Plummer, Sir Leslie



Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Prentice, R. E.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)
Mr. Popplewell and Mr. Short.

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Resolved,

"That this House congratulates Her Majesty's Government upon the rapid expansion of house building achieved in the past six years which has rendered a measure of decontrol possible; reaffirms its belief that

the Rent Act, 1957, will make a valuable contribution to the nation's housing needs, by securing better maintenance of the nation's stock of houses and by bringing into use accommodation which because of rent restriction has remained under-occupied; and maintains its support for Her Majesty's Government in all measures necessary to achieve these ends in a fair and reasonable manner."

HOLY TRINITY HOUNSLOW BILL (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

7.22 p.m.

Wing Commander Eric Bullus: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
All hon. and right hon. Members will, I think, have received a statement which sets out the provisions of this Bill. Briefly, and for the record, I should like to say that the prime object of the Bill is to enable part of the site of the present Church of Holy Trinity, Hounslow, to be sold, and to provide for a new church on the remaining part of the site.
The church, which stands in the High Street of Hounslow, was severely damaged by fire in 1943, and very largely destroyed, but not by enemy action. The church was a Victorian building erected about 1864, and, from an architectural point of view, it was not an important building. At the time of the fire, the parish received a cash settlement from the insurance company at the rate of prices prevailing at that time, which was 14 years ago, and at a time when it was not possible to carry out works of repair on that scale. In 1954, it was found that the cost of restoration would be about £30,000, and this exceeded the available assets by about £10,000.
The burial ground surrounding the church has a frontage to High Street, Hounslow, and on investigation it has been found to have an unexpectedly high value. No burials can take place in the churchyard, nor have they, in fact, taken place there for over 40 years, except in the double graves or vaults. For over 40 years, there have been very few burials in this ground. Powers are therefore sought in the Bill to sell part of the valuable frontage and to build a new and worthy church on a portion rather less than half of the present site.
There is need to emphasise that it is necessary to sell rather more than half the site for economic development in order to attract a good price. It should also be pointed out that Parliament has, in recent years, authorised the use of churchyards, in whole or in part, and the sites of churches in a manner comparable with the proposals of the Bill. I have, in fact,

six instances in the last two years in which such proposals were approved.
The manner in which the proceeds of sale are to be applied is laid down in the Bill. After paying all the necessary costs, and dealing with the removal and re-interment of any human remains disturbed, there will be more than enough left to provide the parish of Hounslow and the borough of Heston and Isle-worth with a dignified and worthy church, and to assist the parish in certain smaller matters as set out in the Bill. I should also point out that the scheme allows for a dignified entrance from the High Street, in keeping with the dignity of the church.
It is proposed that the balance of funds remaining should go to the diocese to assist in the building of a new church in some area of new housing where there is at present a shortage of church accommodation. For this purpose, there has been adopted in the Bill the wording of the Clause in the Reorganisation Areas Measure, 1944, which deals with redundant sites. It will be seen, therefore, that the Bill is of great importance to the parish of Hounslow in that it gives it the opportunity of having a fine church, whereas at present the parish does not possess the funds to proceed even with the restoration of the former building, which was badly damaged, and which, incidentally, has suffered by deterioration in the years since 1943.
At the same time, the diocese will benefit, for some balance of funds will assist materially with the urgent problem of providing church facilities in new centres of population. From the point of view of both the parish of Hounslow and the diocese in general, it would be a great tragedy if this Bill were to flounder.
A Petition against the Bill has been presented by three persons. Some of the statements in the Petition are inaccurate or mistaken, but they are not points of a kind that should be debated in this House at the present moment but rather points that suitably could be debated in Committee. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Heston and Isle-worth (Mr. R. Harris), who originally objected to the Bill, now supports the principle but desires to debate or to have debated in Committee one or two small points.
It should also be pointed out that the Hounslow Parochial Church Council has discussed this subject on a dozen occasions in the last two years, and at its annual meeting, and has agreed the Bill, with two or three dissentients. The passing of this Measure would greatly help diocesan church work, and especially the church life of Hounslow; whereas, if the Measure is not accepted, there is no really useful alternative. The Bill offers the best available scheme and I commend it to the House.

Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: I beg to second the Motion.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Reader Harris: I felt it right that this Bill should be discussed on the Floor of the House because of the strong feelings that it has aroused in Heston and Isleworth, and particularly in Hounslow. There have been churches of one sort or another on this site for about 700 years and the site is, of course, an extremely valuable one, as my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wembley, North (Wing Commander Bullus) has said. It has a frontage of about 80 yards along the middle of Hounslow High Street, and a depth of 50 yards, and the position now is that it does not present a very attractive sight. The churchyard is in a shocking state of disrepair and untidiness. As my hon. and gallant Friend has said, the church itself was destroyed by arson.
Worship now takes place in a shell inside the old building. It is a state of affairs which obviously cannot continue indefinitely because the present building in which worship takes place could not possibly be a permanent structure. But there have been very strong differences of opinion as to the method of restoration. Opinions have differed so much that certain members of the parochial church council found it necessary two or three years ago to resign, and I am now in the difficult position, as Member of Parliament for the area, of having one lot of people coming to me with six or seven hundred signatures opposing the Bill, and another lot coming with six or seven hundred signatures asking me to support the Bill.
The position is that the insurance money produced about £13,000 which, as a result of wise investment, has now

risen to £20,000, and three years ago there was an appeal—a somewhat half-hearted one—which brought in about £1,500. If I say that it was half-hearted, it was not because the people were not serious about it, but at about that time it became possible to sell off some of the land and the appeal rather fell by the wayside. There is now about £22,000 in the kitty, but that is not enough even to restore the church merely by repairing the existing walls. About £30,000 was required some years ago, and now the sum will probably be about £40,000.
The reason the people who opposed the Bill have objected to it so much is, first of all, that they thought it was wrong in principle to sell off church land and so to relieve the parishioners of having to do any work for their church. They thought that if the parishioners had to work to raise the money, even if it took some years, they would appreciate it all the more. They objected to what they called a sell-out to commercial interests, and they do not like seeing their church subordinated to a shopping centre. They do not like having a shopping centre on what they regard as consecrated ground, as undoubtedly it is, and they have taken the view that, having been consecrated, it is consecrated for all time.
Furthermore, one must have regard to the fact that there are many elderly residents in the borough who have had their forebears buried in the churchyard and they are not anxious to see the graves desecrated. In addition, they have always thought that the churchyard, if it is to be altered, should be laid out as a garden of rest.
The supporters of the Bill have taken the opposite view. They have said, "Let us sell off as much of the churchyard as we possibly can and get what we can for it." The amount of money which they have found could be obtained by selling it off is in the region of £250,000. The site which is to be sold would probably be used as a large store, and as to the remaining ground—about one-third of the present site—it is proposed that £100,000 should be spent on a new church, which would make it about the most expensive church built in the London diocese since the war. They propose that £6,000 should be spent on a hall in which worship should take place for two years, while the church was


being rebuilt. The hall would then be handed over to the local scouts.
About £4,000 would go on a number of minor things like repairing the vicarage, and £40,000 would be spent on exhuming the bodies and reburying them at Woking. There would then be a sum left over of about £100,000 which could be handed to the London Diocesan Fund for use on churches in the London diocese.
The view has been taken that a new church is absolutely necessary and that one cannot repair the old one—a view with which I agree. The view has also been expressed that to raise £100,000 in a parish like Hounslow is virtually impossible. Again, that is something with which I agree. I certainly would not want to obstruct the passage of the Bill, because I have no doubt that the parishioners would say to me, "Well, you raise the money then." I do not propose that that state of affairs should arise.
It has been said that although the land is consecrated, it obviously cannot remain consecrated for ever. Indeed, if one searches into the records of Hounslow before the time when Dick Turpin used to ride across the Heath it will be found that the church land around Holy Trinity extended far beyond the present limits and went down the road, along Hounslow High Street and down various other roads. It is said that the town hall is now built on what was once part of the graveyard.
The view is also taken by the supporters of the Bill that there need be no disrespect to the remains of deceased persons or their living relatives because the exhumation would be carried out properly and decently and, therefore, there need be no worry in that respect. The opposers of the Bill say that to spend £40,000 on that sort of thing is a scandalous waste of money. The London Diocesan Fund is only too anxious to obtain £100,000 to help towards building or rebuilding other churches in the London diocese.
My own view is that the Bill ought to have a Second Reading. I believe we ought to build for the living and the future generations, and that we ought not to have an exaggerated respect or regard for those who have gone before. Their

work is now done. We must keep a proper perspective in these matters.
Certainly something must be done about the churchyard, even if it is laid out as a garden of rest. The tombstones must be removed, for the churchyard could not be left with the tombstones all topsy-turvy. The money is exceedingly difficult to raise, although it might be a good thing if the parishioners made some effort towards raising the money for the church. I certainly think it is reasonable that they should do so. But I do not want to see the vicar of Holy Trinity, Hounslow going cap in hand to America trying to raise the money on the other side of the Atlantic, for that would be bad in principle; and I certainly think that something should be done to give the impression that the Christian religion is not being subordinated merely to commercial interests.
The main objection from my point of view is that about two-thirds of the new church will have to be tucked away behind what will probably be a new store. I should have liked to have seen rather less of the frontage sold off so that there could be an uninterrupted view of the church from the High Street. This is an important church. It is the church where all the important civic services have taken place and where I have walked in procession with the Mayor and Corporation on innumerable Sundays in the last eight years. We should have a dignified church and not one which would be pushed up in a corner with every possible square yard sold off to commercial interests. That is a point which, I agree with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wembley, North, can be discussed in Committee.
I hope the Committee will consider selling off less of the land so that there is an uninterrupted view of the church from the High Street and so that there is no suggestion that religion is being subordinated to commerce in an unreasonable way. With that reservation, I support the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed.

MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL (By Order)

Read a Second time and committed.

PROTECTION OF CHILDREN (SEXUAL OFFENCES)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Brooman-White.]

7.40 p.m.

Mr. Frederic Harris: Last November, on the Adjournment of the House, I spoke of the tragic sex murder in my constituency of North-West Croydon some two and a half months earlier of four-year-old Edwina Taylor. Derek Edwardson, who also lived in my constituency, was convicted of this particularly horrible crime. Although I regret repeating such references, which must inevitably, I fear, reopen the wounds of the parents, I must again refer to this case, for Edwardson, apart from being bound over for house-breaking, had an appalling record of sexual offences against children. Edwardson had, in fact, been sent to prison for three months for indecently assaulting another little girl of five years old. He had been fined £5 on another occasion for indecent exposure, and a year later had been put on probation for two years for another similar offence.
In that November debate, I advocated that the Home Office should immediately establish an institution where such sexual offenders could be detained and treated by medical experts. At that time, a Streatham housewife, Mrs. Welsh, herself the mother of two children, launched a petition calling on the Government to establish such an institution for the detention and treatment of these sexual offenders.
The campaign became known as the "Save the Children" Campaign. It was not seriously undertaken at the time, but it automatically developed and gained such support that today I was able to present to the House a petition signed personally by 13,501 citizens of the United Kingdom. It was supported by the Independent Schools Association, which itself embraces about 600 independent schools. It was supported, too, by a letter from the Rev. Dr. Sangster, General Secretary of the Methodist Church, writing on behalf of the members of his Church, and by the Wimbledon Common Youth Council and by many Other bodies. It was supported by many

influential people, including some of my colleagues in the House.
The Petition urged that, in view of the alarming number of sexual offences against young children, immediate action should be taken to establish an institution of the type which I have been advocating. This institution, of course, would be for the detention and, particularly, the treatment of such offenders. The Petition went on to ask that
such persons should not be released until cured.
When my hon. and learned Friend replies, he may make the point, which occurs to many of us, of course, that opinions differ as to whether such people can be cured or not. I have myself tried to ascertain sound medical opinion on the point, and I have gone to great trouble to discuss the matter with medical experts. It is generally conceded that such offenders would certainly benefit from the type of treatment I am advocating, and, in the main, would respond to it, at least to the extent that attacks by habitual offenders would undoubtedly decrease.
Although it has been very difficult for me to obtain really accurate information with regard to the number of attacks of this type against our children which go on year by year, I have made what I believe to be very reliable estimates—the Minister may pull me up on them later or agree with them—and I consider that, very approximately, 5,000 cases a year are reported. Possibly one in ten of the attackers in these 5,000 cases subsequently repeat the offence, sometimes, unfortunately, on many occasions. It is this hard core of habitual offenders which it is absolutely essential, in my opinion, to endeavour to treat. Naturally, I have had much information sent to me. I will recall one letter only, which I received this morning, reminding me of a case where a person has been found to have made seventy such attacks in one year. That seems absolutely appalling and almost unbelievable, but I am assured that the information is accurate.
Some of the attackers, of course, as did Edwardson, to whom I referred, eventually—very tragically—resort to murder, presumably because they reason that the only witness who knows what happened must be destroyed. In 1955, there were three such murders. In 1957, I think,


the number had risen to six. I put it very seriously to the Minister and to the Home Office that, when one thinks of all the tragedy occasioned, no one surely can possibly deny that steps taken to mitigate this suffering would be justified and would have the support of the whole country and, I should have thought, of the majority of hon. Members.
A week ago, my local Press—I have the cutting here—reported the tragic case of a man who had indecently assaulted a little six-year-old girl. He admitted the offence and asked, at the same time, for another seven similar offences to be taken into consideration. Apparently, this man's offence came to light only as a result of a chance remark by the little girl to her mother. The man himself works, or did work, in the ticket office of the railway station and had enticed this little girl into the booking office. It is reported that he stated that he would kill her if she said anything about what had happened.
The man was subsequently sentenced to prison for six months. This is the very type of case which I am endeavouring, once again, to highlight in the House. When this man is let out of prison, if he has not had the benefit of any medical treatment whatever, he will be liable, of course, to repeat this shocking offence. I have had instance after instance put to me where, like this, men have been taken before the courts and have been let out again on probation, without any treatment whatever.
Last weekend, my local Press reported yet another case of indecent assault on a thirteen-year-old girl by a man of forty-five. Although the assault took place in 1956, it has, unfortunately, only just come to light. One cannot help thinking that a large number of such cases must be occurring which are never reported. Therefore, I ask the Minister: do we have to continue to wait before we act whilst the depravity of men of this type drives them to murder children before they themselves are sentenced to so-called life imprisonment and thus restrained merely for a time from harming more children?
I do not honestly consider that mental institutions as such are adequate to treat these cases which are coming before the courts, nor, I submit, are either fines or imprisonment adequate answers to this

problem. It is right to claim that everyone is very proud of the fact that London has more open spaces than the majority of other European capitals. But what a disgrace it is to realise that our children cannot enjoy these amenities in safety unless they are under close supervision or in numbers for protection. Every day, too, the national Press reports cases which have occurred in trains, cinemas, public conveniences, staircases, corridors in blocks of flats and even, to our shame, in the open streets. Local authorities have had to be pressed to provide better lighting because of this problem. It is known, too, that unfortunately these attacks often cause psychological injury which, of course, has a serious effect on the victims in later life.
It has been contended that parents may often be to blame because of their own neglect. But even if this were true, surely it would not justify children being sexually assaulted. We must also remember that in this so-called modern world of ours more mothers are going to work than ever before. Certainly there can be no question of neglect in the case of little Edwina Taylor, who was taken from her garden, little Alan Warren, who was enticed from his father's car, or the Sheesby children, who were out for a walk whilst their mother was working at home.
The signatures on the Petition which I have presented today are a mere token of the number which could be obtained. I will go so far as to say that at least 90 per cent. of the public would sign such a petition if they were invited so to do; but a vast organisation, of course, would be needed to handle it. It should not be necessary, however, to go to such lengths to impress upon the House and the Home Office the vital necessity of providing this small measure of protection for our children.
I have with me details of many incidents and cases which are unhappily known to all of us, but time does not permit me to go through them all in detail. But we all know of these circumstances which are brought to our personal attention as Members of Parliament and which we see reported in the Press. I should like to quote one instance, however, of a case which happened in Batter-sea Park. The man was caught assaulting the child. He was taken to court, subsequently put on probation and


allowed to walk out of court free. What will happen after that?
It would be remiss of me if I did not pay tribute in this short debate to the work of Mrs. Welsh, of Streatham, who organised the Petition which I have presented, and to her husband and all those good people who have worked with them. They have done an outstandingly good job of work. They have worked extremely hard in trying to focus attention on this urgent need, and the public should be very much indebted to them for so doing. I would also like to say that the national Press, and, indeed, the local Press where it applies, have been most helpful in highlighting this problem, which obviously needs to be tackled urgently.
In bringing this matter before the House by means of the Petition and through the medium of this short debate, I sincerely trust that I have said and done enough to make the authorities realise the extent of public feeling on this vital issue. I am not overstating the case when I say that the people are really angered, and each additional tragic incident intensifies their anger. It is surely the common right of the people to expect that their children should be protected from bestial attacks of the sexually unbalanced, and it cannot be claimed that such protection is afforded to them at present.
Even if my proposal is not one which the Government will accept at this time, I maintain that it is up to the Home Office to take definite steps of some kind for the protection of our children. There can be no possible justification for inertia in a matter which, at best, could amount to psychological injury and, at worst, loss of life to numbers of our children. Nor, frankly, when so much is being done by way of corrective and trade training for prisoners convicted of other offences, is it logical to neglect to provide medical treatment to achieve some measure of rehabilitation for those convicted of these frightful crimes.
Let me quote an extract from a letter which I received on Saturday from a lady in Barnet. She wrote to me, saying:
I write to applaud the request of the housewives for a special centre for sexual offenders. I am the wife of a sexual offender and for years have been bombarding Home Secretaries and M.P.s with this very request. My husband has had many prison sentences. They only make him worse and are useless punitively and medically. Doctors say prison is useless but

will not take them into hospital willingly, so that such special centres where they can have proper medical treatment without prison rules seems to be the only course left.
If the country is prepared to spend money in an endeavour to re-educate a man who preys on the public by housebreaking, how much more worth while it is to spend money in a determined effort to save our children from physical and mental injury or even death at the hands of the sex maniacs. I beg of the Minister to realise that the public wants something done and looks to the Home Office to give that indication and to take decisive action.

7.59 p.m.

Sir Godfrey Nicholson: I shall detain the House for only one minute. I should like to call attention to paragraph 100 of the Wolfenden Committee Report. The Committee expressed the opinion that
… there is no justification for the disparity in the maximum period of imprisonment which may be imposed in England and Wales in respect of indecent assault on males (ten years) and females (two years) respectively".
It is a shocking thing that the law should regard indecent assaults on young girls as so much less heinous than indecent assaults on young males.
I welcome the initiative of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. F. Harris) and agree with every word that he has said.

8.0 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton): My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. F. Harris) has done a public service, not only by drawing attention to this matter tonight, but by the sympathy and help which he has given to those in his constituency and elsewhere who have expressed anxiety about this matter and in connection with the Petition which he presented this afternoon.
The problem of dealing with sexual offenders is a very difficult one. It is a very distressing subject. It is a subject to which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, and those who advise him and the Prison Commissioners, have given a great deal of thought. It is indeed a difficult problem; I do not agree that it is quite as black a problem as my hon. Friend has painted, but it is nevertheless a serious one.
In considering the problem we all desire to find a way of protecting children against assault and even murder, but for the very reason that we have a horror of the offences which are committed in this way, it is necessary for us to analyse the problem dispassionately and with great care. I think that it is the murders which took place last year which gave rise to the principal anxiety in the public mind, and I propose first to give the House the facts and figures about what we can describe as sexual murders of children.
Between 21st March, 1957, when the Homicide Act came into operation, and 31st December, the number of children between 1 and 14 years whose murder was recorded as known to the police was forty-two. This figure excludes cases which were subsequently found to be manslaughter, other than those in which there was the defence of diminished responsibility. Out of these 42 children murdered, no fewer than 34 were murdered by their parents, the majority of whom committed suicide. Only four out of the forty-two children appeared to have been murdered for sexual motives, and four men were duly convicted of their murders; but there was one case involving two victims in which the murder is unsolved and the motive is unknown. Therefore, for those months of 1957 we have four children certainly the victims of sexual murders, and possibly six. For the period from 21st March to 31st December, 1955, there were thirty-eight victims altogether, and of them thirty-two were murdered by their parents, and only three were murdered apparently for sexual motives.
As my hon. Friend has pointed out, one of the four murders last year was that of Edwina Taylor, for which Edwardson is now serving life imprisonment. That, I must stress, was a very rare case. At the time the murder was committed Edwardson was on probation for uttering a writing threatening to murder and publishing an obscene libel. I say that his case was a rare one for this reason. As the now well-known Cambridge study has revealed, there is no evidence that sexual offenders tend to graduate, if that is the right word, from the less serious to the more serious sexual offences. For example there is no reason to suppose that a particular

offender convicted of indecent assault is likely later to commit a murder.
It is easy—and perhaps a natural way to approach this subject—to assume that everyone who commits a sexual offence against a child must be mentally abnormal, and to move from that assumption to the assumption that everyone who is mentally abnormal must be capable of being treated and cured. But both those assumptions are erroneous. If the assumptions were well founded we should have an easier and very different problem.
People who commit sexual offences are not usually suffering from mental illness, nor indeed are they as a rule mentally defective. They are mostly people who do not control, or do not know how to control, their impulses. Unfortunately, the number of people who can be successfully treated in any way is small, but, generally speaking, we can say that the younger the offender the better the chance of successful treatment. It is not a question of an abnormality or disease that can be cured in the way that, for example, pneumonia or certain forms of insanity can be cured by well-known medical means. It is much more a question of trying to make the men concerned understand and control their natural impulses.
However, the effort to make a man do that cannot even be attempted, and it certainly will not succeed, unless he has the will and the intelligence to co-operate, and even when he has the will and intelligence, and even when he has tried to co-operate when under treatment, it is impossible to tell whether he will be able to restrain himself when next exposed to temptation and no longer under the guidance of those who have been treating him.
I think it is as well that we should get clear in our minds what the treatment is which has been available. There are three main possibilities so far established. The first is education—perhaps a better word would be "instruction"—instruction by which a youth or a man can be made to understand the need for self-control in leading a happy and useful and law-abiding life. Secondly, there is psychiatric treatment—psycho-analysis and what happens as a result of it. This treatment may take some years to achieve, and is by no means always successful. Thirdly, there is the use of drugs. I must point out that drugs do not result in any permanent cure, and they


are useful in prison mainly as an adjunct to psychiatric treatment. Those are the three forms of treatment which are known to us.
My hon. Friend mentioned that he has discussed the matter of treatment with eminent medical men. He has not so far given details, and perhaps it is not a matter in which it would be useful to give details in public discussion, but I should be very grateful to him if he would care to consult me further, and I shall certainly be very glad indeed to consider what evidence he has from those who advise him in these matters. All that I can tell the House is what I have already said, which is based upon the experience of our advisers in the Home Office and the Prison Commission.
I want to come to my hon. Friend's specific suggestion, that we should take immediate action to establish an institution for the treatment of these offenders, with the assurance that they shall not be released until cured. I think it is a fair supplementary suggestion of his that if we cannot take immediate action we should bear it in mind for the future. With regard to men serving a sentence of life imprisonment it follows from what I said earlier that in this small minority of cases the problem is fairly simple, because they can be kept in prison for as long as necessary; but apart from the question of men serving life imprisonment no such institution as my hon. Friend suggests could be established under the present law.
I say that for three reasons; first, because under our law nobody except prisoners serving life sentence or detained during Her Majesty's pleasure, and people who are insane or mentally defective, can be kept in custody indefinitely; secondly, because, except for life imprisonment, under the existing law the courts are required to name a definite term of imprisonment or corrective training or preventive detention; thirdly, there is the difficulty that criminals can be shut up only because of offences they have committed in the past, and cannot be shut up merely because of a probability that they may commit other or more serious offences, however serious those other offences may be and however great the probability of their committing them.
In any event, in an Adjournment debate we are obliged to confine ourselves to discussing the position under the existing law, and are not allowed to discuss possible legislation, which my hon. Friend's suggestion would involve. Therefore it would perhaps be best if I told the House of the use which we are able to make of the existing law and practice, and it is quite a considerable amount that we are able to do, as I hope I shall be able to show.
I do not believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West would suggest that all sexual offenders should be shut up indefinitely purely for custodial purposes. In any event, that would require legislation. However, if what he wishes is that offenders appearing to need treatment should get it, that is possible under the present law, and there is no need for any special institution over and above what I shall describe.
When a sexual offender is sent to prison he is seen by the prison medical officer, and if he is considered likely to benefit from treatment during his sentence he is sent either to Wormwood Scrubs or to Wakefield Prison, where they have psychiatric units where a man can be treated. In 1956, fifty-six men were treated in those prisons in that way, and of those fifty-six men it will interest my hon. Friend to know that twenty-five had committed offences against children under thirteen. The corresponding figures for 1957 were that forty-eight men were treated in those prisons in that way and twenty-six had offended against children under thirteen.
So much for what can be done in prison, apart from preventive detention, which I will come to later. Under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948—and this is really my second point under present practice—the court may as a condition of a probation order require sexual offenders to undergo medical treatment for one year. I appreciate that this power does not wholly meet the suggestion of my hon. Friend, but it has nevertheless already proved to be of considerable use and has led to a number of first offenders being put on the right path.
To bear out that contention, I would remind my hon. Friend of a point which he was good enough to make in his own speech when he said that one in ten repeat the offence. It follows from that that


nine in ten, on his figures, do not repeat the offence. In fact, I understand the number of sexual offenders who are not reconvicted of sexual offences is 85 per cent. So this system which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) had the privilege of introducing when he was in charge of the 1948 Measure is indeed justifying itself, this system of placing people under probation on the condition that they shall receive medical treatment.
Let us come to the other end of the scale, the persistent sexual offenders. The Cambridge Study, to which I referred, and which was referred to by my hon. and learned Friend, who is now Financial Secretary to the Treasury, when my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West last raised this matter on the Adjournment, which was last year, shows that 3 per cent. of sexual offenders had had three or more previous convictions of sexual offences and that a considerable proportion of those men had been guilty of a number of other offences as well. Therefore it is not surprising that some of these persistent sexual offenders have qualified for preventive detention.
If I may just remind the House about preventive detention, it is for men of at least 30 years of age who have been convicted on indictment of an offence punishable with at least two years' imprisonment—that includes the offence of indecent assault—men who have been convicted on at least three previous occasions since they were 17 of such offences, and on at least two of those occasions were sentenced to Borstal, imprisonment, or corrective training. Those are, so to speak, the qualifications for preventive detention.
It is hardly surprising that the number of men sent to preventive detention for sexual offences is small, but the sanction is there and available against the persistent offender and is used, and to the extent that it is used it does to a considerable extent fulfil my hon. Friend's purpose, because preventive detention is generally awarded for periods of seven years or more.
In conclusion I should like to say this on the problem generally. There is room for neither complacency nor despondency. The fact that there are very few sexual murders of children does not make us less anxious or less

vigilant, and I can assure the House, as I did when beginning my reply, that my right hon. Friend and the Prison Commissioners are keen to do what they can to assist in the prevention of these crimes and in the treatment of offenders. We must not forget that, although the number of children murdered is really very small indeed, the total number of sexual offences of all kinds is very great.
At the same time, although there must be some public anxiety on this matter, I would point out that child murders of this unpleasant kind are mercifully rare, although they acquire much publicity. It should reassure parents of young children—and I am such a parent—to know that of the four sex murderers of children convicted last year three were sentenced to life imprisonment and the fourth is detained, because of insanity, during Her Majesty's pleasure.
I congratulate my hon. Friend. I am grateful to him and we shall pursue this matter with all the earnestness that we can command.

Mr. F. Harris: Whilst thanking my hon. and learned Friend for his most important statement, may I ask whether there is any possible way in which his remarks could be brought to the attention of magistrates in this country? It may be possible that all of them are not fully aware of the facilities available to tackle this problem.

Mr. Renton: As my hon. Friend may know, it is a constitutional principle that it is not for the Home Secretary to advise magistrates on the way in which they should discharge their duties, but no doubt what my hon. Friend has said will come to the minds of many people in the country.

8.22 p.m.

Mrs. E. M. Braddock: I know that there will be no Minister here to answer what I want to say, but I want to put on record in this debate on the Adjournment the fact that the House was previously discussing a most important matter affecting many thousands of people. I understand that today is an Opposition Supply Day. It is customary, and I understand within the Standing Orders, for the Chairman of Ways and Means to take one day, or part of a day at seven o'clock, from the


Opposition's time and part of a day at seven o'clock from the Government's time in Supply, for the discussion of Private Bills. I understood that that is usually done when there is a good deal of controversy about the Private Bill which the House is asked to discuss.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir Gordon Touche): Order. I do not think that this matter arises on the Motion, which is a Motion for the Adjournment of the House.

Mrs. Braddock: I am raising the matter on the Adjournment, and I am raising it so that I can make some comment upon it and say what I should have said had the time of the House not been taken over by Private Bill procedure at seven o'clock. When I left the House at seven o'clock there were many of my hon. Friends and many hon. Members opposite who—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: This matter cannot be raised on the Adjournment. There must be Ministerial responsibility, and there is no Ministerial responsibility for putting down Private Bills for seven o'clock. The conduct of the Chairman of Ways and Means cannot be discussed except on a substantive Motion.

Mrs. Braddock: The Ministerial responsibility is that of the Leader of the House, and I raise this matter now because I want to have some reply on it tomorrow. I want to know why the House can bring its Sitting to a close at 8.25 p.m., when we were in the process of discussing before seven o'clock a very important national matter affecting so many electors who cast their votes for hon. Members of this House.
I raise this matter now so that tomorrow, at the end of Questions, when I shall raise it again, we can have some explanation and some reason given why so many of my colleagues and hon. Members opposite have been denied the right to continue to express the indignation of people in the country about measures taken under the Rent Act and about the possible eviction of tenants.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Lady cannot raise that matter on this Motion. Sir George Benson.

8.24 p.m.

Sir George Benson: I was interested in the figures given by the Joint Under-Secretary as to the number of people who are seeking psychiatric treatment in prison. I think he said there were 56 in 1945 and 48 in 1956—

Mr. Renton: The years were 1956 and 1957.

Sir G. Benson: That is a very small number, but I think that everybody who has studied the problem knows that psychiatric treatment in prison is still largely in the experimental stage. The hon. Gentleman said that Her Majesty's Government could not instruct courts on what to do. That is true; courts are independent, but I am not sure that Her Majesty's Government have not the right to point out to courts those facilities which are available to them and those which are not.
It is a frequent occurrence in the case of a sexual offence that the chairman of magistrates will tell the defendant that he is sending him to prison in order that he may have treatment. There are a large number of persons serving imprisonment at present with that statement behind them who feel that they are cheated. Even if they do not feel they are cheated, they feel that they have an excuse because they have not had the psychiatric treatment which the court said they would get.
It is important, therefore, that courts should realise how small are the facilities for treatment in prison. At present this is purely experimental work. The work at Wormwood Scrubs is a valuable experiment and so is the work at Wakefield. If, therefore, the court wishes sexual offenders to have treatment, I hope the Joint Under-Secretary will see that the courts realise that the only method open to them is to put such offenders on probation because, with the exception of a very few, they will not receive this treatment inside.
This is a serious and difficult problem. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that there were four sexual murderers. The number of adult males in the potential murderer range must be somewhere about 15 million at the very minimum, and it is impossible for any legislation to deal with four cases out of such a great mass. This problem is difficult


because some sexual offences, but by no means all, are serious. I suspect that the great majority are extremely trivial, but it is because the serious ones are rare that there is such difficulty in dealing with them.
One thing which induces serious sexual offences is the way they are splashed in the Press. The type of man who is capable of a sexual offence against a child is obviously unbalanced, and these in-

cidents splashed in large headlines across the Press can be extremely suggestive. I suspect that this plays some part in producing these extremely unpleasant events. I know that the Government cannot control the Press, but I wish that the Press would treat these things with more reticence and more decency.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Eight o'clock.